Beneath the Waves
by Seldavia
Summary: AU, takes place after WW. The heir of the Nohasen fortune hires Link to find an underwater city long destroyed by her ancestor.
1. The Offer

Link scowled as he adjusted his backpack. He never thought he would be _here_, of all places. In fact, for most of his life he'd gone out of his way to avoid the better-known branch of the Nohasen family. All of his ancestors did, ever since the schism centuries ago that split the family.

But the Nohasen scholarship enabled him to attend college. And when one of the Nohasen Corporation's representatives contacted him with a possible job offer, he thought it foolish to refuse.

He walked through the revolving glass doors, into the lobby of Nohasen Co.'s northern branch. Even the company's satellite offices had granite walls and flooring, not to mention a statue of its founder, Tetra Nohasen. Legend said that she had been a pirate, and that was where the family got most of its fortune early on. Link sneered at the confident look on her face, the simple breeches and simple scarf contrasting so deeply with the finely tailored suits of low-level managers scurrying about the lobby from one room to another.

His side of the family had no claim to the fortune, but maintained that they kept Tetra's spirit in mind more than the oligarchy. Most of them, male and female, had been miners, fishermen, soldiers, and other things that paid little but required a certain strength of spirit.

Still, he wondered how far that would go in an interview. He looked down in some trepidation at his shoes, well-shined but obviously second-hand. His suit had been his father's, well-made but out-of-date in the eyes of those who paid attention to such things. Then again, the interview was not for an office job. It was for just the sort of thing his family was good at.

The immaculately coiffed secretary directed him to a hallway to the left, and he found several applicants already sitting outside an office door, made up like mannequins in pressed suits and ties. One snickered and elbowed his friend as Link walked by. The young man did not pay him any attention. Fine clothing would not mean much where this job was going.

Sitting down, Link pulled out his resume and the sheet of paper outlining the position. It involved several months at sea, in cramped quarters, with canned food and dangerous forays into underwater crevasses in a small submersible. This particular branch of the Corporation involved shipwreck scavenging and underwater archaeology. He spent the next few minutes going over and over his qualifications in his head, as well as the answers to any questions they might ask, while the other boys chatted away.

Finally, someone called Link's name. He was a small, rotund man whose mustache flared out from beneath his nose. "My name is Talo," he said in a voice not much bigger than he was, staring at the paper he had in his hand. "Follow me, please."

Talo led Link into his office, its walls decorated with paintings of faraway scenes and the furniture made of cherry wood. Link sat down in front of his desk, in a chair that looked more comfortable than it was.

"Hmm, hmm." Talo stared at the resume Link gave him and nodded slowly, firing off a few questions about what he did in college, where he saw himself in five years, the usual useless queries. Link wondered if Talo would look at him at all; he kept his eyes glued on the paper, as if Link could have just as well walked in wearing a paper sack.

"Ah." Suddenly the man's eyes lit up, and he looked straight at Link for the first time. "You know how to use a sword?"

The boy blinked. Out of all his skills, why on earth had he latched onto that one? "It's a hobby, sir."

"But you believe you could hold your own in a fight?"

"I believe so, yes."

Talo nodded once, then stood. "This looks promising. I want you to speak with someone else who luckily is in the office today. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, of course not." Anything that got him closer to a job was a good thing.

Shuffling his little pile of papers back in place, Talo motioned for Link to follow him to a side door. They entered into a hallway with small offices on each side, sparsely but tastefully furnished. After turning left once and right twice, Talo took a card from his pocket and swiped it through a small reader in front of another door. As Link walked inside, he found only a small room with a young man at a desk, a phone bud in his ear.

He smiled upon seeing Talo. "Hello. What can I do for you?"

Link didn't hear what Talo said. He was too interested in the gold plated sign over the oaken door next to the desk, which read, _Zelda Nohasen, CEO_.

_Apparently she has her own office in the regional buildings, too_, Link thought weakly. He had heard that the heir of the Nohasen fortune had also taken on the role of company leader just a year ago, and she was not much older than him. He didn't budge until he felt Talo gently pushing him to the door.

As Link stepped into the office, he stared around in consternation at the numerous decorations on the walls, most of which appeared to be badly torn tapestries and old parchments written in an illegible script. A few of them appeared to be maps, and he recognized the depiction of the Great Sea to the south.

The desk at the far end, framed against a large window, appeared to be made of marble; in fact, it seemed like it had been carved out of another, much larger building. In the middle he could see the Nohasen family crest, a spread-eagle beneath three triangles arranged to make a larger one.

"Hello." Link's head jerked up to see a young blonde woman in a brilliant blue pantsuit that matched her eyes. "Pleased to meet you, Link. I am Zelda Nohasen." She held out her hand to him.

Link took her hand in a bit of a daze. Her grip was strong and confident, not at all what he expected.

"Go ahead and sit down," she instructed him with a smile.

He plopped down in a chair behind him.

"How much do you know about the Nohasen family?" she asked.

"Uh…" Link tried very hard not to blank out. "I know that it's one of the most powerful families in the world…that we have a common ancestor…and that the oldest known family member, Tetra, was a pirate."

A little frown appeared at the corners of her mouth. "Oh? You don't know anything about your family history other than that?"

Link frowned. His grandfather used to tell tall tales about the adventures Tetra had, but he doubted this was what Zelda wanted to hear. He shrugged. "Just a lot of nonsense…about Tetra's husband being a swordsman, and finding a lost city, and fighting an evil sorcerer. Fairy tales."

"Yes, fairy tales." Zelda opened a drawer in her desk and took out an ancient scroll, so old and crackly that Link flinched as she opened it. Surely something this old and delicate should be kept under glass. "Does any of this look familiar to you?"

Link stared at the drawings, faded, smudged with water and mottled with mold. He could make out a kid with a sword, a kind of medieval-type landscape, an old man that appeared to be morphing into some grotesque creature, and a little boy and girl sailing away in a small boat. The same strange script framed the drawings.

He smiled in spite of himself. "Looks like illustrated fairy tales. They must have been around for a long time, huh?"

Zelda frowned at him. "Link, do you know what caused the schism in the Nohasen family?"

Link shook his head.

"Our ancestor, Tetra, lost a great treasure due to a terrible crime committed by one of _her_ ancestors. The family split when one side wanted to search for it, but the other side wanted to let it lie."

"Let me guess. Your side of the family is the one that wanted to look for it, and eventually found it, and that's why yours has all the money." Link slapped his hand in front of his mouth too late.

Zelda shook her head. "Your side of the family wanted to look for it, while ours turned to looking for other things. Link, don't you have anything passed down to you from your grandparents?"

Link immediately went on the defensive. "I'm not giving it to _you_. Though it's not much…" He pulled a little crystal bottle out from under his shirt, revealing red, green, and blue shards. "Just fragments of pearl…not worth anything really."

To his surprise, Zelda beamed, visibly restraining herself from reaching out and touching the tiny vial. "Yes, I thought so. They aren't worth anything in terms of monetary value, but what we are searching for cannot be bought at any price."

She reached into her drawer once more, and took out a tiny fragment of gold, a jagged square perhaps the size of a dollar coin. He thought he saw it glowing when she placed it on the desk, but as she took her hand away he could see it was just ordinary gold. "This is the only piece that remains, which Tetra took away with her when our ancestor shattered the original."

She watched him expectantly. Not sure what she was looking for, he picked it up to examine it further. He nearly dropped it in surprise as light leaped from its surface, as if reflecting nonexisting sunlight. "Hey, cool! How does it do that?"

Link stared in puzzlement as Zelda stood up, her face alight with promise. "Talo, I think we've found our adventurer. Let the others know, please. We leave in two weeks."

Startled, Link set down the gold piece and stood up. "Leave? Leave for what?"

Zelda turned to him with a beaming smile. "To find the lost country, crushed by the waves for hundreds of years, and bring it back to life."


	2. The Scarlet Dragon

Link drew in his breath, marveling at the sheer power and beauty of the _Scarlet Dragon_, the research ship he would be living on for the next several months. It was an awfully poetic name for a vessel being used for academic endeavors; Zelda had told him it had something to do with the ancient legends.

He shouldered the sailor's sack containing his personal belongings and boarded the ship, eyes roving over the quality steel in its construction, the enormous wheel-and-tackle systems used to haul up treasures from the deep. On fishing expeditions he had used similar devices to bring up pots of lobster or crab; but these looked like they could carry the weight of another whole ship.

"Ahoy there!" A short, rotund man with an old Navy-issue jacket greeted Link from the bridge deck, just outside the helm. "You must be Link, right?"

He nodded. "Are you the captain of the _Scarlet Dragon_?"

"Yep, Captain Delmar. You can just call me Delmar, though, unless we're in some kind of crisis. Then it's 'Captain' or the rest of the day locked in your quarters." He gave a friendly laugh, pulling a cigar from his pocket and offering one to Link.

"No thanks, I don't smoke."

"Well, you shouldn't, young strong lad like yourself," Captain Delmar said as he lit it. "But it's impolite not to offer, y'know." After taking a few slow puffs of the cigar, he gestured down the deck with one hand, small purplish rings of smoke wafting around them. "Been on this ship just five years. I was in the Navy for fifteen before then. Love the ocean, but got tired of fighting." He turned back to his new shipmate. "What's your experience?"

Link grinned. "I've been on one kind of trawler or another for as long as I can remember…but nothing like this."

"You'll want to see the steerage, then," Delmar insisted, his eyes crinkling in delight. "More power in this big beautiful lady than most battleships, courtesy of the Nohasen Corporation." He took another drag on his cigar. "Not sure why they feel they need it for digging up buried treasure, though. From what I hear the legendary Tetra did that well enough with a wooden ship."

After a thorough tour of the machinery in the bowels of the ship, Delmar led Link to the crew's quarters, and left him there to get situated in his bunk. It didn't take long. As he stepped out of the small room, he nearly bumped into Zelda.

He barely recognized her. She stood dressed in jeans and a plain sweater, not at all like the imposing figure behind the desk. Her eyes lit up as she saw him. "Oh, Link, you're here. I want to show you the research facility."

On another ship, the enormous space of the middle deck might house fish tanks or processing equipment. On the _Scarlet Dragon_, the middle deck held a state-of-the-art laboratory, filled with everything from enormous freezers to delicate tools used to pry sea life off tiny artifacts. Bright lights covered every angle of the room, so clean that Link wondered absently if he should have wiped his feet before coming in.

But the most marvelous thing inside the middle deck, just off the side of the lab, was the small submersible, the _Nayru_. Link ran his hands excitedly over its exterior as Zelda rattled off its specifications. "It can dive up to 6,500 meters, can light up 100 square feet in total darkness, its hull is made of titanium, it carries one pilot and one researcher, has the best collection controls of its class, and can store up to sixty specimens up to a foot in length."

"Wow," Link said, at a loss to say more. "So I'm the pilot…who's the researcher?"

"I am," Zelda replied. Link grinned. He was beginning to like her more and more. "Have you met Captain Delmar yet?"

Link nodded.

"Well, we might as well both go see him again. I'm sure he'll want to introduce you to the rest of the crew."

As they approached the bridge deck, though, they saw a scrawny, middle-aged man standing with arms folded in front of the door. "Hello, First Mate Picanite," Zelda said with careful politeness.

The First mate snorted through a nose that looked like it had turned red from too much drinking. Link hoped the man had the sense to restrict this activity to his time onshore. "Captain's busy, Miss Nohasen." He spoke the name with the slightest hint of mockery.

"Blacken!" the captain shouted from inside the room. "Let them in and stop making a nuisance of yourself!"

"Whatever," the little man muttered, moving away from the door and leaving them to open it themselves. "Have fun, greenhorn," he said to Link.

"Sorry about him," Captain Delmar said to Link. Zelda seemed familiar with this ritual. "There's not many people who bother sailing the Dead Sea, and he knows it quite well. That's the only reason I have him on the ship at all…otherwise I'd drop him in a second."

Link shrugged. "No big deal. There's one on every ship."

A little crease appeared over Zelda's forehead. "He knows this is an archaeological mission, not simple treasure-hunting, right? We'll be more interested in pieces of ruins than forgotten gold."

Delmar waved his hand impatiently. "Yes, I've explained it a hundred times, though I doubt he'll ever get it completely." He frowned at Zelda. "Do you really think you can restore a kingdom of legends?"

"In a way. I intend to bring it back to life through computer imagery, once we find enough artifacts to get a feel for what it looked like and how the people lived."

He shrugged, obviously not terribly interested, and turned to Link. "Well, let's change the subject. Zelda tells me you've got some kind of navigation device that will help us find the site."

Link carefully pulled the little vial containing the pearl shards from beneath his shirt. "It's this, though I don't really know how it works as a navigation device."

Frowning at it, Delmar asked Zelda, "Does it work like that 'Triforce' thing you have? The thing you used on the last mission?"

Zelda took the vial from Link, nodding. She took the golden shard from her pocket and placed it in a small glass bubble on the helm. It glowed faintly, light shining out ever so slightly more on one side. She placed the vial inside another glass bubble, next to the gold shard. Link's eyes widened in surprise, for as the gold light touched the vial, both shone brighter, and a piercing light shot forth from the vial, in the same direction as the gold shard.

"Excellent!" Zelda cried, unable to contain her excitement. "This will be so much more accurate; maybe we can actually find the main site this time, rather than just digging up the flotsam and jetsam the currents have carried over the centuries."

Link squinted at it. "How does it work? Is it magnetic or something?"

"I'm not sure," Zelda confessed, blushing slightly. "It may be a type of magnetism, yes. All I know is that certain artifacts from the ancient kingdom have…a power source that they are drawn to. Not very scientific, I know…"

Looking at her downcast eyes, Link realized that she never would have done this if she hadn't been head of the company. "Your father didn't want you to go to such lengths to find it, did he?"

Zelda flicked a bit of hair out of her eyes, embarrassed. "It seems a lot to base your hopes on…but my father always told me to follow my instincts… and something about this just _feels right_."

Link said nothing, but strangely, he had the same feeling.

Delmar chuckled. "It's all the same to me, as long as I get paid at the end. We can search for legendary monsters for all I care."

Zelda laughed. "Thank you, Captain."

-&-

They set out the next day, over the unnaturally blue waves of the Dead Sea. The lack of any kind of aquatic life made it look this way, Zelda explained. Link could see why so few people traveled over it. What was the point of an ocean with no fish?

"How did the Dead Sea get this way?" he asked. "High salt content?"

She shook her head. "No, not any more so than any other normal body of water. It's strange, because even a filled quarry site will start to bear fruit of one kind or another after a while. And the Dead Sea's been like this since ancient times."

"It's cursed, that's why," Link jumped and whirled around to see Blacken there. He scowled as the first mate laughed at his surprise. "Startle easy, don't you, greenhorn?"

Link snorted back. "There's no such things as curses," he snapped. Even as a fisherman, a traditionally superstitious group of people, Link refused to put his faith beyond anything more silly-sounding than lucky socks.

"Suit yourself." Blacken walked off, even more grumpy than before. "You can see yourself, though, there's no _natural_ cause for the Dead Sea."

Link watched him go. "Is he going to do that during the whole mission?" he demanded. "Pop up at random and issue dire warnings?"

Zelda smiled. "He's always been a little strange. But I have to admit, he knows the Dead Sea better than anyone. I suppose that's what made him how he is."

"Why on earth would anyone spend their lives on this oversized water dish?" Privately Link thought to himself, _What could he be looking for?_

**A/N: **_**Scarlet Dragon**_ **is actually a sort of play on words; the King of Red Lions in WW is probably supposed to be a dragon, but "Lion" was probably added because they are associated more with royalty in English-speaking cultures.**


	3. Mutiny

"Hey, greenhorn." Link poked his head out of his quarters to see the cook, Agina, beckon toward him. "We're running low on coffee, and I can't step away from the stove. Go get some from the supply room down below, huh?"

Link nodded to Agina, a balding man so thin one would never guess that he probably spent more time tasting than cooking. "Sure, I'll be right back," he said without irritation. It was customary for new shipmates to be addressed as 'greenhorn' until he or she proved himself among the veterans. Some would not even bother with introductions until the end of the first voyage. Link had both given and taken the title.

The storeroom door had already been opened. He heard something drop to the floor, scattering like ball bearings, and a familiar voice muttered a curse. Link rolled his eyes.

The shadow before him flinched, then brought itself up to full height. "What are you doing here?" Blacken muttered.

"Getting coffee." Link took a brief glance around the cramped storeroom, noting the bullets on the floor.

"Pirates in this area," Blacken explained, shoving the little cylinders in a box. "Even if we don't have any artifacts, they'll be more than happy to take the ship and all the equipment in it." He tossed Link a small handgun. "You know how to shoot, greenhorn?"

Link nodded. "Yeah, which is why I'm kind of surprised that they got excited when I said I knew how to use a sword."

"It probably has to do with the curse. Keep that, here's some ammo to go with it. And here's your coffee." Blacken shoved the items in Link's hands, then turned his back on him. Link's desire to leave outweighed his curiosity about the curse.

He arrived back at the galley to see Zelda pouring over a map, a cup of tea on the table before her. Delmar stood slightly behind, looking bleary. His face lit up when he saw Link. "Ah, that's what I've been looking for." He took the coffee can and turned away without another word.

Zelda smiled up at Link in greeting. "We're going quite far west of our last expedition, which makes sense. We'd been following the debris in the flow of the currents."

Link sat down as Agina passed around platters piled high with bacon and eggs. "I don't suppose there's any way to tell how far we have to go."

Zelda shook her head. "We have enough supplies to last us for six months. But the Dead Sea is huge…even the First Mate admits he hasn't seen the opposite shore."

Link concealed his groan, and Delmar plopped into the chair beside him, now all smiles. "If we knew where everything was, it wouldn't be very exciting, would it?" He buttered a slice of toast and chowed down.

Zelda opened a small notebook. "At 10:00 hours we're going to do a scan of the sea floor. If it comes up with anything promising, we can send _Nayru_ down for a closer look."

Link started on his eggs. "Sounds like a plan."

-&-

Three weeks later, Link finished his twenty-fifth game of chess with Delmar. To say he was bored was an understatement. "Man…I don't think I've ever gone so long without catching anything."

Delmar grinned. "Imagine being on a navy ship in peacetime, doing the same drills over and over again just to keep sane."

"That's not helpful."

Suddenly Zelda burst into the room. "The scan's picked up something promising. Link, are you ready to take a look?"

He grinned wide. "I was ready weeks ago."

The two of them had gone through test runs several times, to ensure Link knew how to handle the _Nayru_; but this would be the first time actually getting into the water. Link watched, a little apprehensively, as the sea surrounded them through the windows as the crane lowered the submersible. He didn't feel any fear, but even though he'd spent much of his life _on_ the water, he'd also gone out of his way to make sure he didn't wind up _in_ it.

"It's that section right there," Zelda said, pointing out the window. It was hard for Link to miss. A huge shelf loomed up above them, as if a mountain had crumbled and then become blanketed with coral.

"Hey," Link said, eyes widening. "That's _live_ coral…and I can see tropical fish, too! How is all this surviving in the Dead Sea?"

"We must be close." Zelda's voice trembled with excitement. "The life-giving power of our ancestors…it must still be here somewhere!"

Link had no idea what she meant, but he steered the sub closer. Below them they could see clusters of anemones, tube worms, and crabs, not to mention a wide variety of fish and the occasional eel. The bright colors of the wildlife stood in stark contrast to the gray bottom that surrounded the shelf.

"So what do you think this is?" Link asked. "A volcanic fissure? That might explain the sea life here."

Zelda didn't answer. "Link, I'm going to see if I can pry off some of these anemones. Bring me in close, okay?"

He did so, and she used a little jet of water to push the marine life away from the surface of the shelf. Slowly, slowly, markings began to appear, clearly made by human hands.

Link squinted. "Hey, it's the Nohasen Corporation seal."

Zelda nodded excitedly. "Yes, the Royal Seal…"

"Royal?"

She scanned the surface for a few moments, then suddenly sat rigid. Hand trembling, she pointed to a small red object, no larger than a fist. "Look at that."

He frowned. "It looks like colored glass."

"Stained glass." She trembled all over, eyes shining. "I know it's too soon to say this, but we may have found…the ruins of Hyrule Castle."

-&-

"Tetra was _royalty?_" Link demanded as Zelda sat in the lab, carefully cleaning bits of glass they had collected. "I thought she was a pirate."

"She was both." Zelda pushed the cleaned shards together, as if trying to finish a puzzle. "Her family had been driven to piracy after she lost her kingdom."

Link snorted. "How do you lose a kingdom? Did someone take it from her?"

Zelda sighed. "I don't know all the details…it's a history that goes back long before the ancient legends. Apparently Tetra was the last remaining heir to an ancient kingdom…but before she could claim it, another relative of the Crown destroyed it."

"What, all by himself? Or did he have an army?"

"It is said that the relative, Daphnes, destroyed the kingdom because he feared it would be taken over by an evil spirit. That is the kingdom we are looking for now."

"Idiot," Link muttered. "There's no such thing as evil spirits. What a thing to destroy a kingdom over!"

Zelda rearranged her glass shards. "There's some truth to it, though I don't know what form it takes. My personal guess is that some sort of epidemic had swept through the kingdom; people used to believe that sickness was caused by curses, after all."

"I hope there aren't any ancient germs hanging around."

"I'm sure the ocean has cleansed the area. That's one good thing I can say about it." Zelda stood up. "I think we should make another dive, this time closer to the south. The ruins of the castle have likely shifted over the years due to the currents, and we can't concentrate all our efforts into one spot."

For the fourth time that day, she glanced over the shoulder of the technician whose job it was to put together all the little pieces they had collected, and transform it into something resembling an ancient civilization. For now they had little more than a building foundation, and even that was subject to change based on archaeological evidence.

Zelda smiled. "We may never see the ancient kingdom of Hyrule the way it once was, but at least it's memory won't be lost forever."

"Ah…Miss Nohasen." They turned around to see Captain Delmar in the doorway, looking pale. "I haven't been feeling well, lately. I'll be in my quarters for the rest of the day…Blacken's got the helm."

"All right, Captain," Zelda acknowledged. "I'm sure we can get by," she added with a smile.

-&-

"That's an odd formation," Link noted, nudging the _Nayru_ closer toward an outcropping of rock before them. It stood up straight, obviously man-made, with a bit of a platform on the top. More rocks lay scattered about the bottom.

"Yes, it's definitely not natural," Zelda muttered through pursed lips. "Let's take a look."

They heard no sound but the low hum of the _Nayru_. A platform of stone did indeed stand before them. In the middle sat a lump of rock. But jammed inside the top of the rock…

"Look at that!" Link exclaimed, as Zelda turned on the light for a better look. "It's a…a _sword_, and it looks like it hasn't been down here more than a day!" The light glinted off the part of the blade that stuck out, and the hilt showed no signs of wear. Though the stone below it was covered in tube worms and sea urchins, the blade itself stood unmarred.

Zelda carefully maneuvered the arms used for collecting artifacts. "We could try to pull it out, I suppose. Otherwise we'll have to ask the ship to bring the crane down."

Link gave her a sly glance. "Did you know we'd find a weird sword here?"

She concentrated on the controls. "There are a number of unusual things I had hoped to find, yes. But I never like to get my hopes up unless I have proof." Nonetheless, her hands trembled as she moved the grabbing claw closer to the hilt.

It clamped around the ancient weapon, and Link slowly increased the engine speed in an attempt to pull it out. But it wouldn't budge. "We can't risk breaking it," Zelda said finally. "I'll radio the _Scarlet Dragon_ and ask them to bring the crane over here."

Several minutes ticked by. "What's taking so long?" Link muttered.

Finally, he could hear the voice of one of the deckhands over his headset. "Coming over to you now."

After a while they could see the restraints sinking down toward them. Zelda used a magnesium flame to separate the rock from the platform, then fastened the restraints using the grabbing hand. "All set; bring it upward," she said to the deckhand, and signaled to Link for him to surface.

Once safely on the ship, Link stepped out of the _Nayru_, all excited. "Let's see if that thing's still sharp, I have to wonder…

Both stopped in their tracks. First Mate Blacken stood in front of them with several deckhands, all with rifles pointed toward Link and Zelda.

Blacken smiled as Link reached for the small handgun, then raised his hands as he realized they were outgunned. "Good choice, greenhorn. You know I'm not stupid enough to give you a real weapon."


	4. The Stranger

"What's going on?" Zelda demanded, her voice cold. "First Mate Blacken, you know what the penalties are for mutiny." She narrowed her eyes. "We've barely started the expedition. Why would you take over when there is so little for you to sell?"

"A necessary action, I assure you," Blacken stated, keeping his weapon aimed at Link's forehead. "I didn't start this mutiny because I wanted to steal Ancient Hyrule's treasures. I did it to stop you from unleashing a catastrophe."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Link demanded. "How will a bunch of old junk cause a catastrophe?"

"I wasn't expecting you to find it at all, much less this quickly." Blacken gestured quickly toward the sword. "Otherwise I would have been happy to play this role and nothing else. But that thing is cursed, and I'll be damned if I let a fool like you destroy us all."

Link actually threw back his head and laughed. "Cursed? Are you kidding? You're causing all this trouble over a fairy tale?"

"Shut up!" Blacken snapped, taking a step closer to Link. "I'm not just some old seaman!" He turned to Zelda. "I would have thought you would figure this out…but it's obvious that you never did. My name is an alias. Rearrange the letters and you get my ancestor's name…Captain Linebeck."

"Linebeck? The cowardly sailor?" Zelda asked dismissively.

Blacken snorted. "You wouldn't know. Tetra had been turned to stone for the entire length of the journey that my ancestor worked with HIS ancestor," here he pointed to Link, "to free her from the curse. It was only through Linebeck's family that the tale of the cursed princess was told.

"During that time i_his_/i ancestor, who was also named Link, told Captain Linebeck that he had accidentally set a terrible curse upon the world, by drawing that sword out of its resting place. By driving it into the stone it's in now, he sealed it forever…or at least until someone tries to meddle with it again."

Link turned to Zelda, unable to believe that Blacken was actually serious. But she had a pensive look on her face. "I see. Was all this really necessary, though?"

"Yes." He stared at Link with wide eyes. "He likely has the same power as his ancestor. He could pull the sword from that stone and endanger us all."

"I don't have any 'powers'," Link muttered in disgust. "Look, just lock the thing up somewhere, keep the key, and let us go. No hard feelings on either side, okay?"

"Oh, oh no. We can't do that." Blacken's voice took on a wavering, slightly mad tone. "As long as you're here, we're in danger. Only one way to fix that."

Zelda blanched. "I will remind you that murder carries a far higher penalty than mutiny."

Blacken turned his rifle toward her. "That's why neither of you are coming back. I can probably bully that fool Captain into keeping quiet, but I know I can't trust the two of you."

"Link," Zelda said suddenly. "Shut your eyes."

He did so without thinking. Before anyone else could react, he heard cries of pain as a blinding flash lit up his eyelids. Link's eyes flew open to see Blacken writhing on the ground before him, clutching his rifle with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other, the rest of the men in the same position.

Link reached down to pull out his handgun, but at that moment Blacken stood, firing wildly in all directions. One of the men cried out as a bullet hit his arm. "I won't let you do it!" Blacken shrieked, and swung the rifle.

Link dodged back to avoid him, leaping above the crate. Hearing the sound of feet on wood, Blacken raised his rifle and fired. Link stumbled back, the bullet just missing the side of his head. He reached out to grab something to keep himself from falling, and his hand gripped the hilt of the sword.

It shifted. As Blacken clambered up the massive stone, swinging his rifle inches from Link's face, Link yanked the sword out. He smashed the blade down upon the rifle, easily splitting it in two. Link hit Blacken on the back of the head with the flat end of the blade, and Blacken fell yowling to the ground.

Suddenly a blinding light shot from the hole in the stone. Link stumbled to the deck of the ship as cracks ran down the rock, flecks of stone covered in coral flaking off. Raising himself to his knees, Blacken stared through blurry eyes at the rock. "You fools!" he cried, his voice rising several octaves. "You fools! You've destroyed us all!"

Link found Zelda and attempted to pull her away from the stone, certain it would explode as more light issued forth from the cracks. The deckhands scattered, throwing down their weapons. With a final flash, the stone disintegrated without a sound.

Zelda and Link turned back, half expecting to see a giant hole in the ship. But there was no hole. There was no damage at all. In place of the stone a large lump sat, motionless. It looked like a pile of cloth. On the side, Link could see another sword, longer-bladed than his, lying at the side. He picked himself up from the ground and stepped carefully toward the cloth, Zelda following wide-eyed behind him.

The pile of cloth moved. Link froze, halting in mid-step. A man's head rose from the ground, flame-haired, his face as solid as the stone it had come from. A shattered ornament glittered faintly from the middle of his forehead. He slowly raised himself to his feet, and Link could see that he had an identical sword in the other hand.

The stranger blinked, as if awakening from a dream, and then his eye fell upon the sword in Link's hand. Suddenly rage flashed across his face, and in the blink of an eye he raised his swords and charged him.

Link met the charge, more out of instinct than anything. "What are you doing!" he shouted as the enormous man, dressed in outlandish dark robes of silk, made slashes and parries far quicker than his size seemed to allow.

Thinking perhaps that the man was a guardian of the sword, Link sprinted away several yards and turned the sword in his hand, offering the hilt. "Is this what you want?" he demanded. "It's yours. I didn't mean to take it."

The man advanced slowly, suspicious. He stared at the weapon in Link's hand but made no move to take it. Keeping his own swords at the ready, he asked Link a question.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Link replied. The words were unlike anything he had heard before, even in all his travels.

The man repeated himself, and his expression changed from menace to puzzlement when Link shrugged in answer. As the fire faded from his eyes, he seemed to age at least twenty years. He shifted his attention from Link to the ship, staring in bewilderment at the scene around him.

Zelda stepped forward. "Are you all right?"

He turned to her, recognition in his eyes. "_Hinala Zelda_? he asked in a deep, rumbling voice.

"My name is Zelda, yes," she replied cautiously. "Who are you?"

But he had already turned from her back to the ship. He placed his hand on the _Nayru_, in a daze, as if unable to figure out what it was. The two followed him wordlessly as he examined the ship, muttering to himself.

Finally he reached the railing, and flinched as his eye fell upon the rolling ocean. With a startled cry, he ran from one end of the deck to the other, as if searching for something in the water. Staring wildly about, he sprinted to one of the doors to the interior of the ship.

"Hey, wait!" Link shouted, as he and Zelda took off in hot pursuit. The man ran amazingly fast, darting around corners so quickly they could barely keep up. He crashed through one of the storage bays, his eyes glued to the port windows, trying to find an exit. He tore through the research facility, barking in anger as glass instruments in his way shattered around him.

He burst into Captain Delmar's quarters, and the Captain leaped out of bed, his eyes bleary and his face a nasty shade of green. "Oy! What's going on!"

The man shoved the enormous captain aside with one thrust of his arm and sped to the opposite door, onto the other deck. Link and Zelda followed, ignoring Delmar's sputtered curses.

Once outside, the stranger raced back and forth along the railing again, leaning out over the bars, nearly falling in. He shouted at the water, the sky, first in surprise and then in despair. With an agonizing cry, he fell to his knees, his head in his hands.

Link crept carefully forward, hearing strangled sobs. As he got nearer, the man whirled around and brandished his swords. Link held up his hands, and set his own sword down on the deck between them. "See? We're not going to hurt you. Okay?"

The man stared at the sword, but made no move to pick it up. He seemed unsure what to do next.

Zelda stepped forward. "It's all right. Nothing is going to happen to you. Will you give me your weapons, please?" She motioned toward his swords.

He glared at her in suspicion, but his expression softened into resignation as he looked around once more. Then he offered her his weapons, his face searching hers. He spoke her name and asked her a question, but she could not understand a word of it.

She set his swords down next to Link's. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying," she said softly. "You already know my name, though I don't know how. This is Link."

Link nodded in a friendly way, but the stranger merely grunted with a face that looked like he had swallowed something bitter.

"What's your name?" Link demanded.

"Hn?" The man made an irritated grunt.

Link pointed to himself, then Zelda, then the stranger. "I'm Link, this is Zelda. What's your name?"

He looked insulted, as if the two of them should already know this. After a pause, he replied with high importance, "Ganondorf."


	5. Living Relic

-1Captain Delmar burst onto the deck. "What in blue blazes is happening on my ship?!"

Immediately behind him, Blacken and the mutineers emerged with guns pointed at the little group near the railing. "Don't interfere, Captain. Your sponsor has awakened an ancient evil that needs to be destroyed."

The captain stared at his first mate's trembling limbs and wild eyes. "What have you been smoking, Blacken?" he asked in a slow, uncertain tone. "And who's that? A stowaway?"

Link and Zelda's eyes darted back and forth between Blacken and Ganondorf. Ganondorf frowned at the arsenal pointed in his direction, seemingly unsure what they were but suspicious that they posed a threat.

Blacken stepped forward. "On my command, men. Get ready…"

Ganondorf made a casual flick of his wrist, and with a loud POP, Blacken disappeared, his gun clattering to the ground and a little green jelly…thing taking his place.

All aboard stared at Blacken – or rather, what he had been turned into – then at Ganondorf, who pointed to their weapons and then the jelly creature, telling them in no uncertain terms that they would be next. As one, the group of mutineers set down their rifles and slowly backed away.

Striding purposely toward the mutineers – who scattered as he approached them – Ganondorf picked up one of the rifles and made a great show of holding it at arm's length, as if to demonstrate that he had no intention of using it on them. Once back at the railing, he turned it over and over in his hands, taking out the ammunition and putting it back in again, gingerly touching the trigger mechanism. He kept it pointed out toward the ocean.

"Should we do something?" Link hissed to Zelda.

"What?" she demanded. "He's already demonstrated what he can do without one."

Finally, Ganondorf raised the sight to his eye and aimed at a passing seagull. The kickback nearly knocked him over, but the seagull dropped out of the sky, dead. Then, Ganondorf threw the weapon with contempt into the ocean. Grumbling, he walked past Delmar as if he wasn't there, motioning toward the jelly creature, which followed him through the door through which he had come.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Delmar walked over to Link and Zelda. "I hope you have an explanation for all this."

-&-

"He's getting into the powdered milk now," Zelda spoke into the walkie-talkie to Link and Delmar, who had holed up in the captain's quarters. Ganondorf refused to allow anyone near him except Zelda, whom for the most part he ignored.

"Blech!" The dry milk not to his liking – he had been eating it out of the box, after all – Ganondorf threw down the box and tore into a package of cookies.

"Now he's eating the cookies…he seems to like those," Zelda reported.

She heard a soft moan from Delmar. "Not the chocolate chip ones?"

"Um, yes, actually. Three at a time." She paused. "Do you guys have food in there? Maybe we can cook something for him."

"You want to give him MORE food?" Link demanded indignantly.

"Well, maybe we can earn his trust that way," she replied. "And stop him from wasting it," she added in irritation as an opened coffee can fell to the ground, accompanied by the sound of spitting.

`Tucking a package of cookies under one arm, Ganondorf walked out of the storage room, the little green monster following. He entered the lab and paused, scanning the room. He slowly walked about the tables and equipment, examining them carefully. He stopped to stare at a small model of the excavation for a very long time.

He appeared to be thinking, scratching his beard and casting glances around the room. Then he approached the nearest set of equipment, a computer used for analyzing sea floor data and further modeling of the proposed civilization. Sitting down at the chair, he pressed a button, then examined the entire computer for some change. Nothing happened, it was turned off. He proceeded to diligently check each button on the keyboard one by one, stopping to look at every piece of equipment afterward.

"Here, let me show you how it works." Zelda stepped forward, pointing to the computer.

He jerked his head up and drew one of his swords, but Zelda attempted to tell him through gestures that she only wanted to show how the thing worked. When she got close enough to the back of the console, she flipped it on. He jumped back as it whirred to life, weapons raised, then stepped carefully forward when it didn't move. He examined the screen with interest as it booted up. Turning to Zelda, he pointed to it and asked a question.

"That's a computer. Computer," she said with more emphasis, trying not to seem too condescending. He repeated it, with some difficulty.

"Is scrambled eggs and toast all right?" Link demanded, a rhetorical question, as he walked into the lab with a plate of food. Ganondorf scowled at him, then wiped the scowl off his face when the smell wafted over toward him.

Zelda took the plate from Link. "Would you like something to eat?" she offered, holding in front of Ganondorf.

He glanced at it and then to Link, frowning. Gingerly taking a slice of toast, he dropped it into the mouth of the jelly creature, which munched happily. When nothing happened, Ganondorf accepted the plate with a little nod of thanks to Zelda.

"What is his problem?" Link muttered, not sure why he felt so miffed.

Zelda shrugged. "It might have something to do with your ancestor."

"If it's someone who didn't like my ancestor, maybe we shouldn't talk to him."

She sighed. "What do you want to do, throw him overboard?"

"No…now what's he doing?"

Ganondorf poked the icons on the computer as if it were a touch-screen. It wasn't, so nothing happened. "Here, let me show you," Zelda offered. He stood, still eating.

Zelda brought up a program she used to record the artifacts and topography of the ocean floor. "This is what we've found so far," she explained, even though she knew he couldn't understand her. "The marks here are things we've brought up from down below." She pointed to a red circle, then to a large stone with the royal seal on it, near the computer. "With the data we've collected so far, from tapestries and carved stone, we can make a guess at what the castle looked like." She entered in a command, and a rough computer model of the castle appeared.

Ganondorf set down his empty plate and stared at the screen in melancholy reverence. "Hyrule," he said softly.

"I wonder…" Zelda said.

"What?" Link asked.

"Is this man…a living relic of the ancient kingdom?" She hurried over to a desk to retrieve a pen and paper. "I know the written language of the Ancient Hylians, though there was no way to determine what it sounded like until now. Maybe I can communicate with him that way." She scrawled a few characters that spelled out her name and showed it to Ganondorf, offering the pen. "Can you read this? Can you write your name?"

He stared, startled, at the word she had produced and gingerly took the items from her. At first he merely examined the pen, and Zelda wondered if he'd misunderstood him. Then he put pen to paper and wrote out a set of characters, handing her the tablet.

She took it eagerly, then frowned. "I have to admit, I can't tell if this makes sense or not. The first part of this is familiar…but it has such a negative connotation, I can't imagine someone using it in their name."

Ganondorf gestured impatiently toward the pen and paper. When she handed it to him, he hurriedly scrawled something that took her a moment to decipher. "Does Hyrule interest you?" She nodded eagerly. "Yes, it does."

She read off the next sentence he scribbled, catching her breath at the last word. "I know how to restore it."


	6. The Storm

Link entered the small canteen reserved for the Captain and top members of the crew, located between the Captain's quarters and the bridge deck. He couldn't participate in the paper-pushing conversation between Zelda and Ganondof, and he was getting a little tired of the grumpy old man anyway.

Delmar was already there, still green around the edges. He pulled a pot of coffee from the coffeemaker. "How's the stowaway doing, eh? He apologize yet for turning my First Mate into a jelly monster?"

At the mention of Blacken, Link jerked his head up. "Don't drink that!" he commanded, pointing to the coffee.

"Why ever not? I always have to have some…it'll settle my stomach after being sick…"

Link ripped it out of his hands. "Blacken was in the food locker just before the mutiny. He must have put something in the coffee to make you sick."

Delmar scowled at the muddy brown liquid, gritting his teeth. "Damn it all, mutiny and stowaways…what a lot of trouble Blacken has caused. He's really going to get it when we get back to shore, and I'm not going to regret seeing the back of him.

"Link, I need to ask you to serve as First Mate. I need a good seafaring man at my side for the next few hours." He motioned toward the computerized compass and piloting equipment in the deck. "In the time that I was out of commission and Blacken was busy mutineering, a tropical depression nearby gained hurricane strength and changed direction." He automatically gripped the coffeepot, then remembered what he was doing and dumped the questionable liquid down the sink. He drew a glass of water instead with an irritated face. "We don't have enough time or speed to avoid it. We'll just have to batten down the hatches and ride it out. You should tell Zelda that she'll need to secure her equipment, because it's going to be rough seas for quite a while.'

"Duly noted." Link got up to leave.

"And when you see her, you need to decide what to do with the stowaway." Delmar scratched his head. "I want to lock him up, but he'll probably turn me into a donut or something. Tell Zelda he can stay in Blacken's quarters, all right? We'll have to have one of us awake at all times in case he decides to…do something….not that we can do much about it."

"Yessir," Link said as he left. He found Zelda and Ganondorf still in the lab, scrawling on pieces of paper and pushing them at each other. Zelda's mouth was curled down in a frustrated little frown. "You getting any useful information?"

She raised her head with a sigh. "Yes, sort of. He's not making a whole lot of sense. He keeps pointing to our ancestor's seal and saying there's some kind of magic in it that could bring Hyrule back entirely."

"I find that a little hard to believe."

"Me too…Blacken's altered form notwithstanding. Plus, I don't really understand how this seal magic is supposed to work. None of the examples we have," here she gestured to a piece of the ruins from their most recent excavation, "will do it, he says. And then when I ask where it is, he says it's broken. Or that it doesn't really exist. Or he doesn't know where it is, but it has to exist, because he does, and he can't exist without it."

Link scratched his head, attempting to arrange everything he'd heard into some order that made sense. "So…he can't exist without it, but he doesn't know where it is? Did he lose it? Is that why he's been locked in a hunk of rock?"

"I don't know. First he said he lost it, then that it was taken from him."

Ganondorf, who had been watching them intently throughout the conversation, suddenly picked up the pen and scrawled part of the seal on the back of his own hand, minus the spread-eagle. He scribbled a little in one of the triangles, then gestured toward Zelda's hand. He spoke quickly, offering some kind of explanation that neither one understood, and made the same mark on Zelda's hand. He filled in a different triangle on hers, then pointed to Link.

"Forget it," said Link. "Go find more paper if you want to draw."

Ten seconds later he found himself struggling to get out of a headlock, and emerged to find his own hand marked. "What the hell was that about?"

Ganondorf pointed at the three of them in turn, then scribbled for several minutes on a piece of paper, finally shoving it under Zelda's nose. She stared at it for a long while. Finally, she shook her head and said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

Ganondorf snorted in disgust.

Rubbing his hand, Link asked, "Well, just what did he say?'

"Something about bringing the pieces together," Zelda sighed, rubbing her temple. As exciting as the day had been, they were quickly tiring of its events. "Something only we can do. Not sure why he felt the need to draw on our hands though. I need to eat, or something…I can't do this anymore."

Abruptly Link remembered his reason for coming back. "Zelda…Captain Delmar says we steered into the path of a hurricane when Blacken made his mutiny mess. We need to get all this stuff tied down so it doesn't knock around and shatter."

Her eyes widened with concern. "Yes, we'd better get started. Thank goodness most of the equipment is packed away already."

Ganondorf caught the worried look on her face and asked a question. Zelda spelled it out on paper, and Link was surprised to see the man's face drain of color. Ganondorf picked up the pen with shaking hands and wrote another mute message, which Zelda returned.

"He wants to know what he should do," Zelda said, a little furrow of puzzlement crossing her brow. "He seems afraid…I told him there would be nothing to worry about, and he could spend the whole time in his quarters if he wanted to…once we find him some."

"Captain Delmar said he could take Blacken's room. I'm sure Blacken won't mind," Link added with a sideways look at the little green creature.

"All right, I'll take him there. Link, start packing up, all right? I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay, hurry up," Link called over his shoulder as he began pushing a computer desk against one wall. "And don't let him eat any more out of the food locker if you can help it."

---

"You can sleep here." Zelda said as she opened the door to the First Mate's quarters. Ganondorf pushed past her and examined the sparse furniture, a look of relief passing over his face as he noted that everything was bolted to the floor. The little jelly creature hid under the bed.

"Stay in your room, okay?" she asked, even though she doubted he understood. "We have to make sure everything's safe before the storm hits. No causing trouble, all right? I'm going to lock the door, but you can leave if you really need to." She put her hand on the door handle.

"Zelda." He sat on the bed and motioned toward a small chair, asking her to sit down.

She shook her head. "I have to prepare the lab. I don't want anything to get broken, okay? I'll come back later."

"Zelda…" he rose, the same mournful expression on his face as when he had seen the computer mock-up of Hyrule Castle. _"Ilnh ba Hyrule so di? Link natta zhi Ira sai."_

"I'm sorry…we'll talk later. I have to finish this first." She closed the door and he made no move to follow her. As she hurried back through the corridors toward the lab, she wondered why he looked so lost. Surely he had a purpose as the sword's guardian?

And if that wasn't his purpose, then what was he?

---

The sword, in fact, had Link distracted in the middle of preparations. He kept examining it for wear, but the thing looked as if it had been forged the day before. Even the threads woven together to make a grip on the hilt had not been affected by the corroding seawater.

It felt good in his hands, too. He made a few experimental swings, taking note of how light it was, how easy to use. No wonder it had been so carefully preserved. His ancestor was supposed to have been a swordsman, he knew. Was it possible that this had been his weapon?

"Are you working, or playing?" He whirled round to see Zelda standing behind him with a teasing expression.

Grinning, he replied. "Just couldn't resist…I've never seen anything like it. Though I guess that would describe most of the stuff on this ship."

Zelda pulled a metal box with thick padding out of one of the large containers, which held some of the more fragile artifacts. "Well, let's make sure we keep it safe. I passed Delmar in the hallway, and he said we won't have more than three hours before the storm hits."

---

It had been a long time since Link last remembered being seasick.

He didn't even remember his first voyage, it was that long ago. He had gotten sick just once, in another storm, on a small trawler that bobbed like a cork in the water. The ship was light, so it zoomed all over the place at the mercy of the waves, up and down and back and forth, and in directions Link didn't know existed.

This was infinitely worse.

It was like being strapped into a neverending roller coaster. When the waves heaved upward, Link felt himself being shoved to the ground, as if a huge hand wanted to squish him into the deck. When the boat fell into the canyons, he felt weightless for a moment, then slammed to the ground again. In between the walls of the ship would randomly ram into him, chuck him back and forth against the corridors. His stomach rose and fell with the waves, and he had to choke back his breakfast more than once.

Captain Delmar stayed strapped into his seat on the bridge deck, steering the ship as well as he could around the worst waves, and checking the radar every five seconds to keep away from the eyewalls. As First Mate, it was Link's job to make sure everyone was in their quarters, and to check with the rest of the crew to make sure there were no leaks or breaches.

He rubbed a bruised arm as he opened the door to Ganondorf's room, and was not surprised to see the big man clinging to the bed, utterly stiff and concentrating on not letting go. Zelda sat calmly in her own room, sliding a bit back and forth on her bed but taking it in stride.

At the engine room, he checked in with the engine master. "The storm's wearing hard on them, sir, but there's no danger signs yet," he assured Link. "We can signal for help if they go out after the storm…it's a shutdown during the hurricane that I'm not looking forward to."

"Is that likely?"

"Right now, no. But we can't go on for very long like this."

Link reported this information to Captain Delmar, who uttered a stream of curses, Blacken's name paired with most of them. "That fool's going to get us killed, and all over some silly superstition!"

Link opened his mouth to offer some assurance; at that moment, a huge wave broke over the bridge deck, slamming into the windows and cracking two of them. Before either of them could move, a piece of debris - it looked like a piece of the deck - smashed into the window. Alarms sounded all over the ship, punctuated with the roll of thunder.

Delmar unleashed a stream of abuse onto the window, its makers, and their mothers, brushing broken glass from his bleeding face. "Get to the quarters, boy! We've no choice but to ride it out!"

Another wave burst over the deck, and the little bottle holding the pearls and golden compass fell from the deck onto the floor. Link dove forward to catch them, but the water rolled it out of the room and down the hall. He scrambled to catch it, running past the surprised faces of Zelda and Ganondorf as they peered out of their doors.

The ship lurched upward, and the water raced back to the bridge deck, Link scrambling to keep up. Slamming Link into the side, the ship listed hard to the right and the little bottle flew out the broken window.

"Link, the compass!" Zelda cried.

"I know, I know!" He wrenched one of the survival suits off the wall of the bridge deck, climbed inside, then ripped the door open. He plunged into the inky blackness of the storm, briefly illuminated by one dazzling claw of lightning after another.

"Boy! Get back here!" Delmar shouted into the speaker-horn used to communicate with the outer deck. Zelda wasn't sure even this could be heard over the noise of the storm. "It ain't worth your life, kid! If you fall in, we'll have no way of getting you out!"

As if to prove his point, a flash of light illuminated a towering wave heading right for the deck of the ship. Link stooped down to grab something, then scrambled back toward the bridge deck. He was just a few feet away when the wave hit.

The entire ship shuddered from the force of the impact. The frothy surf hissed over the deck and swept Link out of sight. Another shrieking alarm added to the mayhem, along with shouts over the PA system that one of the engines had been knocked out of commission. As the water slithered back over the deck, there was no sign of Link. Zelda's scream was swallowed up in another thunderclap.

Suddenly someone pushed her aside, and Zelda looked up in stupefaction to see Ganondorf hurrying out the door. Just a few moments ago he had been cowering in the doorway; now he sped onto the deck in the driving rain as the ship tilted and swayed.

"What on earth is he doing?!" Delmar shouted.

"Captain! Both engines are out!" came the engine master's voice over the PA. "We're dead in the water!"

Before either of them could react, they saw Ganondorf run up to the rail and hurl himself over. "What the…did he decide to end it quickly?" Delmar demanded.

Zelda could only shake her head.

---

Link held his breath as another wave shoved him under. Even with the floating survival suit, he could barely his head above water long enough to take a breath. What was worse, he could no longer hear the ship's engines thudding above him. As he popped to the surface again, he could see the enormous metal structure nodding closer and closer toward him, unable to control its movements and about to crush him.

As lightning flashed overhead, he saw someone or something fall into the water from the ship nearby. Whatever it was, he hoped it floated. He attempted to move nearer to it, and away from the ship, but the sea had its own opinion of where it wanted him to go.

Another huge wave slapped him beneath the surface. He could feel a strong force in the water pulling him downward, possibly the wake of the ship. He struggled to rise, but only sank further down. His vision blurred and he began to black out.

Something tugged on his hand, trying to wrench the little bottle out of his tightly balled fist. He clutched harder, even though it would not help him. Something smacked him on the side of his head, and he looked up in his failing vision to see Ganondorf there beside him.

The man tugged on the little bottle again, and Link pulled his hand away. Ganondorf gestured impatiently with his other hand, clenching it and then freeing two fingers, then placing his other hand over the half-fist.

Link thought he understood. He released two fingers, and Ganondorf clamped his hand over them. Link felt a strange sensation in his hand, a comforting warmth in that cold, dark maelstrom.

A spherical wall, like a bubble, formed around them. Suddenly Link could breathe again. He coughed and spluttered, and tried to pull away, but Ganondorf shouted at him and held his hand in a death grip. Link watched as the old man raised his head to the surface, and the bubble slowly rose to the surface.

Link watched in consternation as they floated at the side of the ship, moving away when it came too near and moving closer when the waves crashed over the side. Finally, a wave carried them over the railing and the bubble burst as they slammed into the bridge deck door. They both scrambled inside and nearly bumped into the surprised faces of Delmar and Zelda.

Breathless, Zelda demanded, "How did you…?"

With a mix of triumph, reverence, and pride, Ganondorf held up the little bottle and its golden shard. "Triforce."


	7. Shards

Link ferried them all into the First Mate's quarters, the safest room that could hold all four of them. The rest of the crew had already taken shelter to ride out the storm. The entire world rose and fell, lurching back and forth, and they gripped the bolted furniture to keep from being thrown into the walls or each other.

"This is the worst I've ever seen," Delmar muttered. "I hate doing nothing, but it's all in the hands of the sea at this point."

Zelda said nothing, her strained face clearly showing her doubts that they would make it out of this alive. Only Ganondorf sat calmly, in sharp contrast to his earlier fear. He focused all attention on the little compass bottle, staring down at it with a strange, reverent expression, as if it were his firstborn child.

Finally, after casting about for something to occupy her attention, Zelda held out her hand for the compass. "Here, why don't you give that to me. We can't use it right now anyway."

To everyone's surprise, he snatched it out of her grasp and snapped, "Mine!"

They all stared. "Well, looky here, he can speak our lingo!" Delmar exclaimed. "Eh, old man, why didn't you start talking before?"

Ganondorf watched him, uncomprehending, and turned his attention back to the compass.

"I think he learned that just recently," Zelda said slowly.

Link shifted uneasily. He didn't like the idea of a crazy sorcerer listening in on their conversations. When he had been confused and ignorant, it had been tolerable, but Link couldn't be sure what he would do next. "Hey. Hey, Ganondorf! How much do you know of what we're saying?" The old man ignored him. "Hey, fatso. Hey ugly. You're one ugly, stupid piece of work. C'mon chubby, quit faking. We know you understand us. Now own up."

Ganondorf said nothing. Zelda frowned at Link. "This probably isn't the best time to provoke him."

"It's the perfect time to provoke him. Where's he going to go if he gets upset?" The ship slammed into the bottom of a wave, nearly shattering all their spines, as if to punctuate his statement.

Link paused. Quick as a flash, he made a grab for the bottle. "Mine!" Ganondorf snarled, landing a punch on Link's face.

"Why?" Link demanded, holding his hand to his face, where a black eye was already starting to blossom. "Why yours?" He pointed to Zelda. "She found it. She used it to bring us here."

Zelda nodded, holding out her hand again. "It's a family heirloom." She smiled at him. "Thank you for returning it to me. I need it to find Hyrule."

He watched her, uncertain, still keeping the little bottle tight in his hand but wavering slightly. "Hyrule mine."

They all pondered this for a while. "What on earth does that mean?" Link demanded. "This guy doesn't look like any of the ancient kings described in the legends. On what basis is he claiming ownership?"

Zelda watched him thoughtfully. "He is of the ancient kingdom, so I guess it belongs to him, in the same way that he belongs to it. Maybe he's afraid we'll take the ruins with us, and abandon him."

Link sat up, under sudden inspiration. "Oh, you mean like antiquities traders? Yeah, that would be a legitimate fear, I guess. He's afraid we'll take what's left of Hyrule and sell it. Well, how do we convince him otherwise?"

Zelda patted Ganondorf's empty hand. "We're not going to take Hyrule from you," she said in a soft, soothing voice. "We want to restore it, remember?" She pulled a pen and small tablet of paper from the night table, but couldn't write anything in the pitching of the waves. "Link, give me your hand."

With a few quick strokes she reproduced the three-triangle seal on Link's hand, her own, and Ganondorf's. Then she placed her hand and Link's on his. "We're going to help you, all right? Will you help us? Will you trust us?"

He looked dubious for a moment, then said, "Trust Zelda." But he put the bottle in a pocket of his robe. "Trust Ganondorf?"

Zelda paused for the briefest moment. "Yes."

Delmar chuckled. "Crafty one, isn't he?" Link rolled his eyes.

Sighing, Zelda said. "It can't be helped. He's not going anywhere for now. Let's concentrate on one problem at a time."

As if to emphasize her statement, all the lights in the ship went out.

---

"Gaaahhh!" Link let loose a few choice curses as oil spurted in his eyes. Wiping his face with his already soiled sleeve, he wrapped the offending hose in a sheet of flexible, binding silicone. It would hold at least until they got back to port, which would take a couple of weeks with the engines at half-speed. At least the storm had ended before the entire ship had cracked in two. He figured they had just enough food to last that amount of time, if Ganondorf didn't eat it all.

The thought of the odd old man put Link into an even fouler mood. Ever since the storm, Ganondorf had refused to let go of the little bottle that held their impromptu compass. Link had reason to believe he even slept with it under his pillow. But what bothered him the most was the idea that Ganondorf had jumped in the water to retrieve it, not him, and had only brought him to the surface because Link wouldn't let go.

Link pushed all thoughts of Ganondorf out of his mind, to concentrate on the task that had already taken up fifteen hours every day for a week. Luckily for the _Scarlet Dragon_, Link was as good at engineering as he was at sailing. A fisherman who spent most of his time on small boats had to be; there just wasn't enough crew for specialization.

After the other engineers thanked him and each other, Link left for the main quarters for a bite to eat. Then sleep, and then more repairs until the job was finished.

In the captain's kitchen, Delmar sat with an amused look on his face as Zelda gave the words for things Ganondorf pointed to. The old man usually repeated them accurately on the first try.

Delmar roared with laughter. "Link! You're missing all the fun! Our stowaway's a quick learner, and quite a character at that."

Link rolled his eyes. "I take it you've forgiven him for turning your First Mate into a jelly bean?"

"I have. It seems a fitting punishment for his mutiny. Though I'll expect him to turn Blacken back when we get to shore, or we'll have a lot of explaining to do to the authorities." He turned to Ganondorf and shouted as if the old man were deaf, in the manner that some people speak to foreigners. "Gonna turn him back, right?"

Ganondorf grunted in assent, not really paying attention.

"If you really wanted to punish him, you should put him to work fixing the engines," Link said with a wry smile. "Is there any food left? I'm starving."

"I wouldn't let Blacken within fifty feet of the engines," Delmar snorted. "Not now, anyway. Sorry, Link. Here, take an extra slice of chocolate cake as consolation."

Link took the offered plate and sat as far away from Ganondorf as possible, which wasn't very far in such cramped quarters. Still, Zelda frowned at him. "How long are you going to keep this up?"

"How long is he going to keep our compass?" Link retorted.

"Well…maybe it really does belong to him. He and everything else we've found around here belongs to the old kingdom."

"Are we giving up the search, then?"

"Of course not. He told me that we need the compass to find the rest of the seal anyway. The rest of it's probably in pieces too. He seems as interested as we are in raising Hyrule, though I still have my doubts about whether or not that's even possible." She rested her chin on her hand. "I guess until then, we should just let him hold it. It's not like he's going to run off anywhere with it."

"He's not?"

"No. He told me he needs our help; us two specifically. But he's not very clear on why."

"That's no surprise."

Zelda shrugged. "He's learning our language quickly. If he becomes fluent, it'll be easier to question him than pushing paper back and forth."

"Is that so." Link squared his shoulders and stared at the old man. "Hey, Ganondorf. Who are you really?"

He appeared engrossed in his mug of chocolate. (He still would not touch coffee.) "Link fix ship?"

"That's not what I'm asking, jerk. Enough with the stupid act. Who are you really, and what's your connection to this 'Triforce' thing?"

Ganondorf raised his head and give Link a long, thoughtful stare. Then he stood. "Come. Link fish."

Link turned to Zelda. "Did he just call me a fish? What kind of insult is that?"

Delmar roared with laughter. "Nah, nah, he wants to do this again." Holding up a rod and reel, he handed another one to Link. "Very interested in fishing, it seems. He was doing it all day."

Scowling, Link snapped, "This doesn't answer my question."

Zelda smiled slightly in spite of herself. "Sure it will. You two go and bond over some slimy bait, and maybe that will answer your question."

He hung back as Delmar put the tackle in his hand and began pushing him out the door. This wasn't at all what he had in mind. "C'mon, we'll do this later. I want to rest."

Delmar slapped him on the back. "Best way to relax, my man. And maybe you can catch something for dinner that's fresh, for a change. Damned if I'll ever enjoy eating canned tuna."

---

Link sat grumpily at the side of the boat with his line in the water, the old man sitting serenely next to him. "I don't see how this helps," He grumbled. "You can't talk much at this point. Why not write it down for Zelda to translate?"

Ganondorf held his finger to his lips, which only infuriated Link further.

"We're not going to scare the fish off, not compared to this hulking pile of metal and all the banging going on to get it fixed." He stood and leaned over the railing, yelling down at the water. "Hey! Hey, fish! Yeeeaaaahhhh! Here, fishy fishy fishy!"

"Shhh." Link whirled around, ready to hurl a string of abuse at the old man, but paused when he saw him take out the little bottle again. After shooting Link a reproving glare, he closed his eyes and the little bottle began to glow again.

"Yes, that's very impressive," Link snarled, sarcastic. "While we're on the subject, why don't you admit that you were ready to let me drown, huh? You're not fooling anybody."

Suddenly Ganondorf's line jerked. His eyes flew open and he began reeling it in, intensely pleased. Link sighed and sat in his chair. Having fished for a living, he could not see it as a recreational activity.

He pulled in a small cod, barely legal size. Link sneered at the man's jubilant expression. "You might as well throw it back," Link said. "Unless you want to use it for bait, I suppose."

Ganondorf ripped the hook from the fish's mouth and Link nearly tripped over himself stepping back as the old man pulled one of his swords from its hidden sheath in his sleeves. With a few deft blows, he beheaded and gutted the fish, then gingerly began examining the entrails.

"Cod innards are good bait," Link remarked. "I gotta admit, though, it's kinda weird that you would find this so…"

He drew in his breath as Ganondorf held something golden in his hand, an inner light shining through the slime. It was another compass-piece, slightly smaller than Zelda's. "Triforce!" he announced with much authority.

Link stared. "You mean…this is just like Zelda's piece? You…you can do some voodoo or something and attract them to you?"

To his great surprise, Ganondorf put the new piece, about the size of a pearl, into the bottle and handed it to Link. "Triforce come. You, Zelda, me."

The little shards glowed slightly. "It will come to me, too? Why?"

The man's face clouded slightly, as he struggled with his limited vocabulary. "Link have…ehhrrr…Zelda…same father. Not father…"

"Ancestor? Do you mean Tetra? We both come from the same family line…but so do a lot of other people." Link frowned. "Really, lots of people could be descended from her, it's been so many years."

Ganondorf took the little bottle back. "Tetra ancestor break Triforce, break Hyrule. Mine now. I fix. You fix too." He gestured to the ship. "You come for find Hyrule, yes? Fix?"

"We'd like to," Link said, skeptical. "I think it's a bit beyond fixing now."

"Fix Triforce, fix Hyrule," Ganondorf said with conviction.

Link looked dubiously at the little bottle. "How much more of those little gold pieces do we have to find?"

Here Ganondorf's hopeful expression finally dimmed. "Triforce big. Sea big."

"Kinda like looking for a bunch of needles in a bunch of haystacks, huh?" Link scratched his head. "Well, I guess it helps that these things are drawn to us…though I have to admit I still don't understand any of it." Suddenly he brightened. "Hey, maybe there's something else you can explain."

He gestured for Ganondorf to follow him, and led him into the lab. It was one of the few places where very little had broken, as it had been designed to protect fragile materials. Ganondorf frowned in puzzlement as Link pulled boxes out of compartments, finally selecting one. "Can you tell me anything about this?"

Ganondorf took several steps back as Link lifted up the sword that had been lodged in the rock. "That bad," he stated with great emphasis, and mimed throwing it overboard.

"You mean, it has a curse on it or something?" Link examined the blade, which had never shown any sign of wear. The fact that it had been underwater like this for centuries still fascinated him.

Agitated, the old man gestured toward Link to keep it away from him, or throw it away.

"Well, I can't just get rid of it. Zelda would kill me. It's the best artifact we've found so far." He noticed that the man's face relax as Link put it back in the box, and shoved the box back in its locked compartment. "Let's go back to the kitchen, huh? Even if we didn't catch anything good, I'm sure Zelda will be happy to see that piece you found."

Link made a mental note to move the sword when Ganondorf wasn't looking. For all his friendly overtures, something about him made Link realize that there must be a reason why he had turned to stone.

And why his own touch had brought him to life.


	8. The New World

Link spent the next two weeks in and around the engine room, making sure that any pipe or flange or hose that ruptured under the strain could be repaired as quickly as possible. When not asleep or working, he would grab a bite to eat in the kitchen, where he usually found Ganondorf speaking haltingly to Zelda. Now and again he saw the old man pouring over books, especially ones with pictures. He watched as Ganondorf stared long and hard at a picture of Link's home city, where the Nohasen Enterprises building towered over all others, and wondered what the old man would make of it all.

As the port came into view, Zelda turned to Ganondorf. "I think now is the best time to change Blacken back. Delmar's already radioed ahead and alerted the authorities, so the police should be there when we dock."

Link stretched his arms, and beckoned for some of the other sailors to come to his side. "We'll hold him down and make sure he doesn't try to escape by jumping ship."

With everyone standing ready, Ganondorf made a casual flick of the wrist over the jelly creature, and they found themselves staring at Blacken on his hands and knees on the deck. Blacken stared up at the old man before him, eyes as wild as they had been just before his transformation. "You fools…you fools! What are you doing?!" He stood and the sailors jumped forward to restrain him. "Captain! Captain! What horrible curse have you brought down on our heads?"

Captain Delmar scowled at his former First Mate. "Blacken, once we dock the police will arrest you for mutiny. I've nothing more to say to you." He turned and stomped back to the main deck, giving orders to slow the ship down.

Blacken turned to Link and Zelda. "What's wrong with you? Are you not Tetra's descendents? That man is the embodiment of pure evil!" He pointed with one free hand at Ganondorf, who wore an indifferent, almost blank expression. "You have unsealed the great darkness! Famine and disease will devour the earth as it did in ancient times! The King of Evil is once again free to wreak havoc!"

Ganondorf appeared completely unimpressed with this description of himself and turned his attention to the growing cluster of buildings onshore.

Blacken ranted and raved the entire time that they pulled into and secured the ship to the docks, growing in intensity as the uniformed officers seized him. "You'll regret this, you fools! Death is at hand! Be prepared to pray for forgiveness when the Apocalypse comes, the sky opening up again and drowning us all as it did Hyrule! May you forever be tormented in Darkness for the part you played in its quest for power!"

His voice turned to incomprehensible shrieks and babbling as the police dragged him off the ship. Link watched Ganondorf out of the corner of his eye. All this time the old man's face had been completely impassive; but the moment Blacken ducked out of sight, a small, satisfied smile crept across his face.

---

The old man had agreed to a "No Magic" commandment from Zelda, in order to keep the compass in his possession. Unfortunately he didn't feel that should extend to his swords, which could not possibly fit in his sleeves without something more than mere slight of hand. He had kept his nervousness in check long enough to get to the dock entrance; but when the sleek, black limousine from Nohasen Enterprises pulled up to the curb, out they came. The driver hurriedly shifted the car in reverse and was about to speed away when Link and Zelda pulled Ganondorf away, the old man poised to leap on the hood and stab the strange black monster in the windshield.

Zelda opened the doors and showed him the inside, explaining it was a means of transport. Then she held out her hands for the swords. A long argument ensued, ending with Zelda keeping the swords in the limo, in his sight but out of his reach. Ganondorf spent the trip to the Nohasen building examining every light switch, the minibar, and the radio, or sticking his head out the window to watch the scenery go by.

Link had never been in a limo either, but he decided to keep his dignity.

Once there, Zelda spoke briefly to the driver. "I need to meet quickly with my shareholders about what we have found," she informed them. "But both of you are welcome to stay at my home while we make preparations for our next voyage. Link, can you look after him, please?"

"Sure," Link said, looking out of the corner of his eye at the smirk on Ganondorf's face.

"All right. I'll meet you there in a few hours." She walked quickly to the elevators. Link mused for a moment over the fact that she was still wearing normal clothes. He wouldn't put it past her to have a whole closet of suits just at her office, outside of whatever she had at home, ready for just this kind of occasion. He'd spent so much time with her as an equal and now he was back to being just another employee. Though he doubted she'd treat him that way, even if other members of the Nohasen Corporation did.

Link swiftly pulled something he'd brought along out of the limo trunk, a large bundle wrapped in black fabric. He walked back to the lobby, where Ganondorf stood examining the surveillance cameras with great interest. "Hey, old man. Time to go."

Ganondorf glanced briefly over his shoulder with eyes narrowed in irritation, then turned back to the camera.

"I said," Link stated in a low voice as he casually flicked a bit of fabric away from a purple sword hilt, "It's time to go."

Ganondorf whirled round, his expression changing instantly to black anger. "You threaten me?"

"Not if you don't create a scene. Zelda wants us to go to her house. Is that really that bad?"

The fire in the old man's eyes slowly died, and he straightened. "No." Pushing past Link, he headed back to the limo. He seized his swords, which Zelda had left lying on the seat, and placed them back in his sleeves, with a very pointed look at Link. For his part, Link sat opposite him with his sword across his lap. They both sat there, not moving, watching each other for the hour and it half it took to drive to Zelda's mansion.

---

The Nohasen family mansion reeked of old-money charm, made of stone with the occasional lion's head sculpture, an enormous fenced-in and forested lawn separating the stately abode from the road. The driveway was made of cobblestones, and jolted the riders as colorful flowerbeds and sculpted bushes rolled past. A thin, middle-aged man opened the door for them and introduced himself. "My name is Jonathan, and I am Zelda Nohansen's house assistant. Sirs, if you would come with me, I can show you to the guest rooms. Ms. Nohansen called and said she should be home for dinner." He opened the enormous oak double doors at the front of the house and beckoned them inside.

Link had seen such homes in movies, but never really thought they existed. The front hall was made of marble and had the requisite crystal chandelier hanging over all, with a double stairway leading to an upstairs chamber. There were four smaller doors, two on each side of the floor where they stood. Portraits hung everywhere, and on small pedestals he could see some small artifacts of the drowned kingdom that had been incorporated into the Nohansen décor.

Jonathan led them through a twisting set of hallways, where they passed so many museum-quality portraits, sculptures, and furniture that Link's head ached. Finally, Jonathan opened a door into an airy, wood-paneled room with glass doors that opened out to a balcony. "Ms. Nohansen requested that you take this room, Mr. Link."

Link reminded himself to thank Zelda for giving him a room where he didn't feel like suffocating. Jonathan opened another door on the other side, two doors down. "This one is for you, Mr. Ganondorf."

Link sneaked a peek out of curiosity. The room had walls of granite, with dark, rich rugs on the floor and a large bed. Ganondorf grunted his approval.

"If you need anything, both your rooms have bells next to the light switch." Jonathan demonstrated and they heard a light chime. "Either I or another one of the staff with come to assist you."

Link expected him to start pushing the button as he had all the others, but the old man didn't seem to have any interest. Apparently buttons in houses were nothing new to him. As Jonathan left, Link could see Ganondorf laughing silently at some private joke. "What's so funny?"

The old man turned to him. "This very appropriate for a Zelda."

"Appropriate for Zelda." Link never missed an opportunity to correct his speech.

Ganondorf smirked again, at some other riddle Link had no answer to. Then he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

---

"Mr. Link, if you are ready, dinner is waiting. Ms. Nohasen is already in the dining room."

"Thank you." After Jonathan left, Link hurriedly pulled on what he termed his 'fancy pants' and a clean shirt. He traced his way back to the entry hall and found Ganondorf staring at a portrait.

The old man wore the same thing he had been wearing since he had emerged from the stone. Link wondered how he stayed clean, for he had never seen Ganondorf wash it. Yet it continually looked as if he had bought it yesterday. Link figured that came from whatever magic that kept his swords hidden.

Magic. Another thing that had somehow become 'normal' in the short span of time he had been involved in the Hyrule excavation.

Ganondorf turned to meet him, but this time he did not have any words of contempt. He jerked his head toward the portrait. "You know this man?"

Link glanced at it. "It's King Daphnes, Tetra's ancestor. The one who sank the ancient kingdom because it was about to be overtaken by an evil force."

The old man gave him a steady look. "You believe this?"

Link shrugged. "We don't really know what the legends mean by that. It's one of the mysteries we're trying to solve with the expedition. I've heard Zelda say she thinks it was some sort of pandemic or something…but we don't really know." He smiled in spite of himself. "Maybe it was an eclipse that set Daphnes off. All that talk about darkness…imagine being afraid of the moon!"

Ganondorf gave him an odd look, then nodded as if satisfied. He gestured toward the portrait. "You see this man, you kill him. No questions."

Link stared. "He's been dead for centuries."

With an enigmatic little smile, Ganondorf said, "So have I."

Speechless, Link watched the strange old man turn and head toward the dining room.

--

The three of them sat in a small, private dining hall, probably reserved for the mistress of the house, on the few occasions she was at home and not entertaining company. Link felt relieved. He had been afraid she would bring in her executive compatriots, but she came home alone.

"We should have all our supplies restocked in a couple of days," Zelda said finally, breaking the long silence that had been accentuated with the tinkle of silverware on china. Both looked up at the sound of her voice, which seemed much thinner than usual. Link noted circles under her eyes.

"Do you want to rest for a few days?" Link asked. "The ruins have been there for thousands of years. They can wait a little longer."

She sighed, and put down her fork. "The shareholders keep bothering me for results, and I showed them what I had. I had a hard time explaining the mutiny without mentioning Ganondorf."

"You didn't tell them about him?" Link asked. "Why not?"

"It is probably best," said Ganondorf, not wanting to be talked over but unable to contribute much to the conversation.

"They would not believe me if I told them. A man who steps forth from stone? They would lock me up if I did not produce proof. And I do not want to put him on display."

Link privately giggled at the mental image of Ganondorf inside a cage, with a little sign stating 'Ancient Man' above him. And children feeding him peanuts…

Ganondorf ignored him completely as he spoke to Zelda. "There is very little magic here."

"There is none." Zelda looked at him, eye to eye, and Link jerked out of his silly mental image.

A strange mixture of realization and deep melancholy flooded the old man's face. "I could feel it. The…energy is different. Static…"

"This is not Hyrule." Zelda's voice took on a lower tone, and seemed older, strangely resonant. "This is the country to which our ancestors fled after the legendary Golden Kingdom sank beneath the waves for the second time. The magic was unique to Hyrule…our ancestors had to adapt to a world without it. And so, these old ways have been forgotten. The only remnant is that small golden shard which was passed down through our family.

"We didn't even know it had magic properties. There was no way to identify such a thing. We just knew it was a strange energy, and had unusual elemental properties…like uranium, for instance." Link nodded, but Ganondorf looked blank. "But we knew it was drawn to the ancient kingdom…somehow."

Ganondorf took out the little compass and twiddled it around between his fingers for a while. "You know the creation legend?"

The others shook their heads. Ganondorf thought for a moment, gathering together his fragmented vocabulary. "In the beginning, there was…nothing. Three Goddesses came. Din, goddess of Power, made the earth. Farore, goddess of Courage, created all living things. Nayru, goddess of Wisdom, gave people the knowledge to govern themselves and separate them from the animals. When they left the earth, they left the Triforce behind. It is…the magic that fuels Hyrule. Hyrule cannot be separated from it." He pulled a face. "I don't know the words to tell the story well," he grumbled.

"So…then Tetra's ancestor, Daphnes…how could he break apart such a powerful thing?" Link asked.

Ganondorf thought for a moment, as if deciding how much he wanted to say. "The Triforce is Hyrule's heart. It was hidden for many years. Hidden and protected…like here." He thumped his chest. "Magic like blood, flowing in the body. But Hyrule's heart was exposed. It has such power, that you can make it do anything. Ask it to bend reality…end a drought. Make me king. Destroy my enemy. Daphnes asked it to destroy itself. No more Triforce, no more Hyrule."

Link squinted, trying to make the fragmented pieces fit together. "So…you could make a wish and the Triforce would make it so?"

Ganondorf nodded. He and Link turned their heads when Zelda made an irritated sigh.

"We have proof that the Triforce has magic properties," she said slowly, staring at her plate as if something rotten sat there. "But it is still so much outside everyone's comprehension, I can't show it to my shareholders. I haven't told them anything about Ganondorf at all, other than we met him on the Great Sea. I told them that he lived on an isolated island there."

"So what?" Link demanded. "Why does it matter? You didn't start this expedition to make money off Hyrule anyway."

"That's the problem." She put down her fork and pressed her hand to her temple. "Even though this is my company, I have to make sure the people who invest in it get something back. And the expedition only drains money. They are not interested in my ancestor's ruined kingdom." She shut her eyes." They've been trying to get me off this project for a while now. They've threatened to remove me from my position if I don't leave it to an academic expedition and go back to running the company." She looked up, her face drawn. "They say that if I don't come back with something significant on this next trip, they'll vote someone else in my place."

"No!" Ganondorf sat up straight, his face set. "We cannot restore Hyrule with someone else. The Triforce will only come to us."

"Why?" Link asked.

Ganondorf hesitated. "You are Tetra's direct ancestors."

Link felt he wasn't getting the whole story, but decided to let it be. "Zelda, why don't you quit? You probably could pay for this whole thing on your own…if you were willing to give up some stuff you don't need."

She sighed. "This company has been in my family for generations…I can't just leave." Turning to Ganondorf, she said, "I need to ask a favor of you."

He looked interested. "Yes?"

"There will be a banquet tomorrow. I want you to play the part I described for my shareholders…someone who has lived on the islands, and is familiar with the ancient kingdom. They won't believe you if you tell them everything, and you probably shouldn't anyway…but I need you to help me convince them that the expedition has value. That Hyrule is worth searching for." She looked hesitant. "Can you do that?"

A crafty smile spread across his face. "Of course."

--

Link spent most of the night hiding in the corner with his gin and tonic. Upper-crust banquets were extremely uncomfortable, he decided. He pulled at the neck of his starched shirt, and frowned in the mirror at the ridiculous bow tie he had to wear. It was a 'black tie affair', and therefore specific monkey suits were required. Zelda had asked that the two outfits be made for both her companions.

He could see Zelda off to the side speaking to what he assumed must be the investors. She was stalling as much as possible. Both she and Link could sense that there was something about Ganondorf, something hidden beneath the surface, that should be kept out of sight from other people. And not just his uncanny ability to practice magic. But sooner or later they would demand to see the last bits of the expedition she had been holding back, and Link would have to go get him. He was not looking forward to it.

Link saw Zelda walking toward him, with two men flanking her on either side. Both wore sour, expectant expressions and looked as if they actually liked the uncomfortable penguin outfits they all wore. She stopped next to him and gave him a gracious smile. "Link, would you bring our guest in? My companions would like to meet him."

The man on the left, with a face like granite, nodded shortly. "Yes, and be quick about it, please. We've been waiting all day." He shot an annoyed look at Zelda, who ignored it and simply smiled her serene smile.

Link wondered at her patience. He would have smacked those two men around ages ago.

He opened the small dressing room that Ganondorf had been given. The old man wore a dismally grouchy expression, tugging at the fabric which he had put on wrong, despite being shown how to do so several times. He'd forgotten the cummerbund, and the bow tie sat untouched on the opposite side of the table.

Link sighed. It was like being put in charge of a very violent, disturbed child. "C'mon, you were supposed to be ready by now." He picked up the cummerbund and walked toward him.

Ganondorf snatched it out of his hand and pushed him away. He fumbled with it for a bit, glaring at Link if he didn't keep his back turned and refusing any help. He picked at the fabric for a bit, attempting to make it look exactly right. Apparently he understood the value of appearances, even if he didn't understand the use of this particular outfit.

"This too." Link picked up the bow tie with a perverse kind of displaced pleasure; if he had to wear one, then so did Ganondorf.

Ganondorf took it from him with a snarl and brought it around his neck. He fumbled with it for a bit, both sneaking a look at the lopsided one Link wore in order to figure it out, and also sneering at the young man for his relatively haphazard appearance.

"Hurry up." Link did not want anything to go wrong for Zelda. He reached for the bow tie but Ganondorf slapped his hands away. After watching him fumble for several minutes more, Link shoved him and took hold of the bow tie.

Link had to concentrate very hard on the bow tie not to look up into the severe, burning yellow eyes that stared at him with deep hatred and suspicion that Link still didn't understand. Ganondorf stared at Link like a man at the gallows with a noose around his neck, and Link could feel a tense nervousness, as if the old man were really afraid Link would simply choke him out of temper. And with that fear came a boiling rage that made Link briefly fear for his own life as he struggled to make the damned black fabric stay in the shape of a silly little bow.

Finally he stood back. "There, all finished. Now let's go."

Ganondorf tugged at the tie a little, then ran his hand through his neatly brushed red hair. He really did look good in that outfit, quite sophisticated, but Link wasn't about to say so.

But when they reached the ballroom, the old man's demeanor completely changed. Instead of snarling like a wet cat, he gave a gracious smile equal to Zelda's to the two corporate hangers-on, as well as a crisp handshake. His face relaxed, as if he could not think of anyplace he would rather be or anyone he would be more delighted to see than the two sour-faced men.

"I have seen small samples of the artwork in the ancient kingdom," Ganondorf said smoothly. "Surely you have an eye for such things? It may not be practical, but one with a refined taste would certainly find it intriguing…"

"Ah, of course, I love art," said the man on the left. "I am more into modern art, though. There is a much higher level of creativity…."

"Indeed. But when you take into consideration the amount of work put into the old carvings…"

"Ah yes!" The man on the right spoke up. "Nothing beats the classics, I say. I have quite a collection of ancient art at home."

Zelda walked away with a slightly perturbed expression on her face, and approached Link. "Like a duck to water…he acts like he's dealt with snobby aristocrats many times before. Look at him make them try to one-up each other in front of him!"

Link shrugged. "Yeah, he seemed pretty barbaric before, but maybe that's because he couldn't talk outside of waving his swords. Besides…we found him in the ruins of a castle, he probably went there now and again."

A little worried crease formed on the bridge of Zelda's nose. "We've got something very big on our hands, Link…so big I'm not sure how we can contain it…and we know so little about it…"

Link turned, surprised. "Do you mean Hyrule, or Ganondorf?"

She watched as the three men broke into laughter, and Ganondorf walked off to find new victims. "Both."


	9. Return to the Sea

Ganondorf watched as the huge crane lifted box after box of supplies onto the _Scarlet Dragon_. Zelda could tell he was in a much better mood than the last time he had been on the ship. So was she…Zelda had gotten a second infusion of cash from her investors, thanks to the old man's charms.

I have to be careful, she thought to herself. There's something just not right about him. I have to keep control of this expedition. Can't give him too much freedom.

And yet, the success of their mission seemed inevitably tied to Ganondorf. The fact that he had caught a fish with a piece of the golden relic in its belly was too remarkable to be just coincidence.

The first thing to do would be to make sure he could not attempt to run this expedition himself. Link had said that all three of them supposedly could draw shards to themselves, but as of yet Ganondorf had not let go of the compass or offered to teach them how.

She would have to force him, without him suspecting.

Zelda led Ganondorf into the lab, where she gestured toward the equipment. "Most of this here is for analysis. It's only good after we've already found something. But from what I hear, you can help us out a great deal with the actual looking."

Ganondorf nodded. He scanned the lab, his eyes resting on items that Zelda had not yet explained to him on the return trip.

She motioned for him to follow her. "Well, the best item to use is actually in another room. I know you've seen it before, but you probably didn't know what it was for."

She opened the door to the storage chamber where the _Nayru_ was kept. "This is an underwater submersible," she explained as he walked up to its side. "This is primarily what we've used to retrieve artifacts from the bottom of the sea." She pointed to the two tiny seats inside. "Here's what I was thinking. The submersible requires one person to steer it, and the other to manipulate the collection controls. Link has been the person steering in the past, and I would search for artifacts. But, I think it would be a better idea if you went in the submersible with Link. Then, you could find Triforce pieces at the very bottom of the sea, miles down. We wouldn't need to use energy for the lamps because you could just draw the pieces to you…no need to light up the pitch black." She smiled excitedly. "You could stay down even longer than the usual four hours! What do you think?"

Although he kept his face impassive, Zelda could tell exactly what Ganondorf thought of spending four hours at the bottom of a dark ocean in cramped quarters with Link. She wondered if his face could get any greener.

He stood there, deep in thought, and Zelda waited for him to find a way out of this conundrum…hoping he would reach the same conclusion she did.

"I think I have a better idea," he said at last. Uncorking the compass bottle, he shook both of the golden shards out onto his hand, leaving the pearl fragments in. He took one and, looking as if he'd much rather not be doing it, pressed it against the back of his other hand. Zelda watched as he concentrated, a dull glow shining through his flesh.

When he removed his hand, she saw with surprise that the three-triangle mark had appeared on his hand. A tiny speck of gold shone out from the top triangle, in the exact shape that the shard had been.

He motioned for her to give him her hand. With a strange thrill she could not quite understand, she waited as he pressed the other shard against the back of her own hand. She had expected it to hurt; but instead felt a sensation like ice melting, and when he removed his hand she could see that the mark had been replicated on her own. The little fragment that had been passed down through generations now showed itself as a spark of light, in the right-hand corner.

"I can search for more shards from the ship," Ganondorf said, and rattled the pearl shards in the compass. "I will give Link this, and the two of you can go down in the…the _Naryu_ to look for more."

Zelda wiggled her fingers. "How do I…how do I draw it to me?"

Ganondorf frowned. "You…I do not know how your piece works." He reached for her hand. "Perhaps I can assist…"

She ducked quickly out of the way. "You mean the pieces have different properties?"

She could see a slight shadow pass across his face, the only indication that he had inadvertently given up a vital piece of information, and silently scored herself another victory. "Yes…you could say that." His face became impassive again. "I suppose you will just need practice. Neither of you have used a magical artifact before, except for the compass you created. You've never had a direct connection to a source of magic."

"So what should I do?"

He looked past her, deep in thought. "I think…you need to concentrate on it calling to you. Its voice. With it, you can hear things no one else can. You can see things no one else can."

She frowned. "You mean like hallucinations?"

"I mean like visions." He nodded out to sea. "Perhaps you have a dream…it tells you to follow a certain constellation, to follow the wind, or gives you a picture of a nearby island."

"Can't I be more…proactive? Link says you practically pulled a piece out of the sea."

"I have had much more practice." He smiled slightly. "I was a great sorcerer, once…years ago."

"I figured, given what you did to Blacken." Link spoke up upon hearing the end of the conversation, as he joined the other two. He couldn't help noticing Ganondorf try to hide a scowl.

"Parlor tricks," Ganondorf said dismissively. "You will see what I mean when we gather more pieces to us. We…all three of us…are capable of incredible things with them."

---

Captain Delmar yawned and stretched in his seat as he steered his ship away from the shoreline and back out to sea. Now that everything was fixed and ready, he was more than happy to be traveling the ocean again.

"You're going to burn a hole in it with your eyes," he said over the loudspeaker to Ganondorf, who watched the receding shoreline disappear on the horizon with a little bit of trepidation. Regardless of the mission's lofty aims, he felt better on dry land, and glowered at Delmar.

"Ah, come in here and have a mug of chocolate. I want to talk to ya," Delmar announced. Ganondorf shrugged and went into the kitchen, then entered the captain's deck with two mugs in his hand.

"Been meaning to speak with ya," Delmar said as he downed the scalding liquid. "You learned how to talk pretty fast, eh?"

Ganondorf nodded. "It is an easy language to master."

Delmar laughed. He could tell from Ganondorf's carefully diplomatic expression that the old man was simply humoring him…probably because it never hurt to be on good terms with the Captain. He respected this; Delmar had worked with many people he didn't particularly care for, people who were nonetheless essential to whatever he was doing. Plus, after the debacle with Blacken, he figured it would be a good idea to have some basic knowledge about his passengers and crew.

"Not very fond of the ocean, are ya? This Hyrule place, that they say ya come from…there's no oceans there?" Delmar wasn't sure he believed that there was a dry country where the sea stood - he figured it had been an island that had sunk - much less that Ganondorf had once lived there. But it made for good conversation.

Ganondorf thought. "Hyrule had high mountains on all sides," he explained. "There was one valley through the mountains that led to the desert…and I traversed the desert many times over, when I was much younger. But I saw no oceans, only lakes and springs."

"Desert! Now that's one place you'll never find me," Delmar said. "I have to be somewhere that has water."

Ganondorf gave him an odd look. "The ocean is a kind of desert," he said. "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink."

"I s'pose you're right there. Most oceans have plenty of food…but not this one, it's dead. I mean, there's some scraggly things like the one you caught, but nothing a restaurant would pay for."

"Sometimes you have to make do with scraggly things."

"True, true." Delmar pushed aside his empty mug of chocolate and reached for a beer in the little refrigerator under his navigation panel. He offered one to Ganondorf, who shook his head. "I know what that's like. Survival training in the navy. I remember this one time…"

---

Link and Zelda were washing up the remains of their dinner when Ganondorf walked in. "Oh, wait here a moment, there's something I want to ask you," Zelda said.

He made a terrible face. "It'll have to wait. I spent the last three hours listening to the Captain tell war stories. I've had enough human interaction for one day."

"Please." Zelda set down in front of him the cubed beef she had been keeping warm and a large slice of chocolate cake next to it. "it's very important."

He wavered, then sat down and began to eat. "All right," he said grudgingly. "I'll stay, but I won't promise that I'll talk."

Link and Zelda sat opposite him. "I'll get to the point then," Zelda assured him. "Tetra's ancestor…did you know him?"

He stopped shoveling food into his mouth. "I did," he said slowly, after a pause. "What of it?"

"What was the darkness that brought him to destroy his own country?"

Ganondorf set down his fork and the other two could sense that he was going to give them a very diluted answer, but an answer nonetheless. He stayed silent for several moments, then said, "Daphnes was being…poetic. There was a power struggle, with different interests battling for supremacy. Daphnes was afraid he would lose."

Link frowned. "Must have been a huge variance in those 'interests', then, to obliterate an entire country."

Giving him a contemptuous look, Ganondorf said, "You know very little about the country from which you came. Have you even thought about why we look so different? You are both the spitting images of your ancestors…except for the pointed ears, which appear to have been bred out of you as your Hylian ancestors mingled with humans."

Link touched his ears. "Pointed ears? Like fairies in children's tales?"

Ganondorf nodded. "The force that bound Hyrule together was magic…housed in the Triforce…and there were a number of magical entities there, like fairies. There were others that you would probably only conceive of in magic tales, though they had no magic inherent in them. There were the Gorons, who looked like giant men carved out of stone, who lived in the lava tubes and caves of volcanoes and lived on stones. Then there were the Zora, fish-people, though they looked nothing like the mermaids that adorn your old ships. The Kokiri were forest spirits - their forms changed over the years." He paused. "And my people were the Gerudo…warriors of the desert. During the First Flood, a few of each managed to survive, but by the time Daphnes…"

"The first flood?" Zelda asked. "You mean there was more than one?"

He stared at her in surprise. "Wh-what? You do not even know….of course you don't. All that is left is shards of its former glory…until we can find those shards and piece them together…they have all been….lost…not just my own, but the others…."

He trailed off. Link and Zelda exchanged glances.

Ganondorf rose, leaving his cake untouched. "I prefer not to speak about this now." He brushed past them and exited the door toward their sleeping chambers. "There will be…more than enough time…in the morning…"


	10. Wisdom's Vision

It was hard to see. For a moment Zelda thought to herself that she must have forgotten to put on her glasses, then remembered that she didn't wear glasses. A murky fog enveloped her vision, only clearing slightly when she looked hard at something.

The Something she was staring at looked like a huge suit of armor, built for a barrel-chested knight. It was not alive, she could discern that much. And yet it had been placed in a very difficult position for an inanimate object to rest without falling forward. It leaned forward, sword upraised, as if about to lunge at someone or something; but as far as she could tell, there was no danger of any kind around her. The air seemed…dead. Still. As if a roaring thunderstorm had suddenly gone silent.

She stepped forward, a little unsteady. The air felt like molasses, and she moved through it about as quickly. The knight faded from her vision, and another figure took its place. This one had the same barrel chest, but also wore a pig-snout face. The entire figure was colored gray, like the knight, but carried a glaive instead of a sword. It crouched in a defensive posture, as if listening, and Zelda realized she could not hear even the sound of her own breathing. She could not determine what the creature had been carved from; it looked like stone, and yet something told her it was not.

Very, very slowly, her vision cleared a little more. She stood in a large space, indoors, a room with red carpeting and marble pillars. Stairs appeared in front of her. She walked up slowly, carefully, strangely unused to her own body. A large statue loomed up off to her right but she ignored it in order to keep her balance.

A door to the outside opened up in front of her; but just as she was about to step through it, the scene around her shifted to a damp cavern, ill-lit with small torches every several yards. Further and further up she climbed, distinctly feeling the cold, hard stone that someone had roughly hewed out of the living rock, as she pressed her hand against the wall to keep her balance. She paused for a moment to rest and glanced at her hand. Dull surprise registered in her mind as she saw she wore long, white gloves, something she had never before worn in her life. She looked down at her feet and saw they were covered in pink, white, and purple fabric.

Something pulled her away from her odd appearance and she climbed the stairs yet further, in her dreamy floating state. As daylight began to shine from an opening somewhere above, a strange smell accosted her nostrils. It smelled like something rotten. Rotten meat. Stale, scummy water. And something else she couldn't quite place, a scent that echoed of tombs and old abandoned hospitals.

She reached the top and the harsh daylight nearly blinded her. Zelda blinked several times, rubbing at her tearing eyes. Then the world came into sudden, sharp focus, and a bloodcurdling scream tore from her throat.

Bodies, human bodies, piled everywhere. Bodies of women, the flesh of their faces pecked away by the seagulls that perched on their corpses. Bodies of children, crumpled like discarded dolls around the rocks. Some of them, man or woman, you could no longer tell. Arms and legs lay half submerged in the unclean water, water that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Flies buzzed in the air like flocks of crows, and when the wind turned toward her the stench of bloated, rotten flesh drove her to her knees as she retched over the ground.

She raised her head and pressed her hand against a rock to steady herself. The rock had a _face_. A human face. It had eyes and ears and a nose and mouth, all open and staring at the sky. Zelda stumbled to her feet and scrambled backward. Faces, faces everywhere. The rocks had a face, the fish had a face. The women and children didn't have a face, for the seagulls had already taken them.

_He_ had done this. She was sure of it. She was sure even though she didn't know who _he_ was. A murderer without a name, without a face.

The empty air around her screamed with death and destruction, the end of the world. It _was_ the end of the world. The end of _her_ world, the world as she knew it…

The pounding in her ears was so loud it blocked out the screams, and suddenly the pounding came from the door of her cabin and she sat up gasping for breath, completely drenched in a cold sweat. The cabin was pitch dark but a small pinpoint of light reached her eyes, moved as she moved her hand, the little shard of golden triangle that now resided within her. It faded and she heard a familiar voice, muffled, shouting from behind the door.

"Zelda! Are you all right?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes, Captain Delmar, I'm fine. Just a nightmare. Sorry to worry you."

A pause. "Must have some nightmare, you were screaming bloody murder in there! Ah well, if you don't want to go back to sleep, there's waffles in the kitchen."

Bloody murder. Zelda pulled her hair away from her sweaty neck and began to get dressed.

Only Ganondorf sat in the kitchen when she entered. He had deep bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept well either. "Where are Link and the Captain?" she asked.

"The captain is doing his job steering the ship, and Link is fixing something." He spoke with detached disinterest, but his expression changed when she sat down with a plate of food. "Are you…all right?"

She blew a strand of hair out of her face and dug into her breakfast, surprised she would have an appetite after what she had seen. "Yes, just a bad dream."

A pause. "A dream about what?"

Zelda scowled as she cut the waffles. She preferred to let it fade like any other nightmare. "Nothing, just the Apocalypse, that's all."

"What exactly did you see?" He spoke sternly, his eyes boring into her.

She sighed, bringing her hand to her temple. "I was in a museum or something, full of statues, and then it cut to a bunch of dead people at the side of a lake."

When his voice came, it sounded strangled. "You saw the Flood?"

Glancing up at him, she swallowed her food before she spoke. "You…it can't be the same one, can it?"

Ganondorf's eyes narrowed. "Did you sense any activity from the Triforce?"

Zelda glanced at her marked hand. "Actually, it was glowing slightly when I woke up…" She raised her head slowly. "You don't think…that I saw…"

They were rudely interrupted by the kitchen door slamming open. Link walked in with a scowl, wiping his hands on a bit of cloth that looked too dirty already to be doing any good. He scraped up the leftovers of breakfast from the range and sat down at the table. "Stupid pipe burst again," he muttered by way of explanation. "We replaced that one before we left, it was brand-new, I don't get it." He chewed while the other two stared at him. "What?"

"Zelda has had a Vision," Ganondorf announced with much gravity.

Link looked blank. "A vision of what?"

Zelda stared down at the table, her plate pushed away. She had suddenly lost her appetite. "I saw…the Great Flood." She wanted to explain more, but could not find the words.

Link's face contracted in puzzlement. "You mean…you had a vision of Hyrule? When the Dead Sea was created?"

Ganondorf nodded. "Even separated for all this time, the Triforce has not lost its power…or its memory of the world that functioned as body to its heart." His face trembled slightly, as if trying desperately to conceal some deep emotion. "There is hope after all."

--

"To concentrate better, keep your eyes shut," Ganondorf instructed as he, Zelda, and Link stood on the deck of the ship. "Open your mind to your ancestor, to the person whose clothing you wore in your dream. Envision the Royal Symbol, specifically the three-triangle seal, and will it to come to you."

Zelda stood as solid as stone, head bowed slightly, eyes shut. "How do I know it's working?"

"You will know. That is all I can say. I don't know the intricacies of your piece. But you can no more ignore it than you could the visions in your dream."

Behind them, Link sighed. "Speaking of which, when am I going to get my piece?"

"We can only draw our own to us for now," Ganondorf explained. "But once we possess more of the relic and once Zelda has had more practice, we can concentrate on yours."

"Mr. Link, sir?" One of the sailors peeked his head out of the door. Since becoming First Mate, all of them had addressed Link as 'sir', which made him ever so slightly uncomfortable. "There's another problem in the engine room. We'd appreciate your help."

"Another one?" Irritation crossed Link's normally serene face. "Do we have gremlins aboard?"

The sailor cracked a smile. "I hope not, sir."

Zelda opened an eye. "What are gremlins?"

Grinning slightly, Link said, "Oh, just made-up creatures that like to cause trouble. They show up when something unexplained happens…or if someone on repair duty was sloppy. That's probably who invented the stories, actually. Well, I guess I'm off to soak my hands in oil again."

Ganondorf watched him leave, a thoughtful expression on his face. He turned back to Zelda. "Concentrate on the water. What we are looking for lies beneath, perhaps very far below. I doubt there are many Triforce pieces swimming in fishes' stomachs."

Zelda did so. It was hard to concentrate, with the rise and fall of the ship, the thrumming of the motor, and the sense that Ganondorf was watching her, as if monitoring her progress. But after a while her mind seemed to drift along the waves, and then skim across it, like an albatross in flight.

Then, a flicker, as if someone had lit a small flame in the back of her mind. A strange pull as if being drawn by an unknown force. And an overwhelming sense of discovery.

Her eyes flew open. "That way!" she declared, pointing to the east. She felt as if a string had attached itself to her from the piece of golden relic she knew was there. "I'm sure of it."

Ganondorf nodded, staring out over the ocean like a man cut from stone. "I feel it too. There is more than one shard. Come, let us inform the Captain."

--

The magic force pulling her forward rested upon a high shelf, shallow enough to be reached with normal diving equipment. Link and Zelda changed into wetsuits and SCUBA gear, while Ganondorf waited on the deck. He could not swim, he said, and could not pull off miracles like fishing Link out of the ocean every day.

After plunging into the water, Link followed Zelda as she let the relic on her hand guide her, like a compass or even a metal detector. They realized quickly why this part of the sea was so shallow; it was the site of a hydrothermal vent, one that had grown ever taller over time. Wormlike creatures protruded from holes in the living rock, one of the few things that could survive in such conditions, Dead Sea or not.

Zelda swam up to the vent, then paused. "It's just inside the opening," she said, speaking into the little radio inside the visor that covered her entire head. "But it's not like I can stick my hand in there."

"Hold on." Ganondorf's voice crackled into the earphones from his post on the ship's deck. To their great surprise, the bubbling heat slowed and then stopped, as Ganondorf's strained voice came back over the radio. "Zelda, concentrate like I told you, but this time on your hand. The Triforce you hold will protect you."

Link swam up next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Don't go in too far if you feel yourself getting burned."

"I won't." Zelda gritted her teeth, and after a few moments, plunged her hand into the vent. She withdrew it quickly, and Link opened his mouth to ask if she was all right; in answer, she held up a tiny shard of pure gold.

"Mission accomplished," Link said into the radio. "We're coming up now."

"Oh!" Link turned and stopped his ascent to see Zelda clutching at her air hose. "Go on, I'm right behind you." He did, but did not let her leave his sight. They surfaced without further incident and climbed the metal stairway to the deck.

Zelda pulled off her equipment and examined the air hose. "There's a little puncture, nothing serious, but it's a good thing we didn't have to go down very far."

"We need to double-check the equipment before every dive," Link said. "I think we got a little overexcited this time."

"Did you find it?" Ganondorf demanded.

Zelda nodded and displayed the small shard of gold in her hand. He gestured for her to give it to him and she did, then both of them watched as Ganondorf added this piece to her hand. "There's another shard nearby," he said. "I think I can draw it to me without leaving the ship."

"We're quite far away from the original site," Zelda said. "The pieces must be widely scattered."

Ganondorf nodded, frowning. "Yes, but we are making good time. We should have all the pieces in a couple of months…barring any unexpected problems."


	11. Pulled into Oblivion

Link quickly put the finishing touches on the impromptu hiding-place he had created for the ancient sword, mostly made out of duct tape. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and quickly stepped out of the room, before Delmar or anyone else could ask what he was doing in Zelda's chambers.

It was the best place to hide it, he figured. He'd stashed it in his own quarters, but had spied Ganondorf playing with the lock on his door. He could think of no other reason why the old man would want to go into his room. Chivalry or something similar kept Ganondorf from going into Zelda's room.

Feeling slightly impish, Link sneaked back over to the lab. Sure enough, the old man kneeled down on the floor, moving equipment around in the compartment where the sword had been last stored.

Link had begun to think that the sword was a kind of lock too, having kept Ganondorf sealed in stone for who knew how long. And until he could figure out why the old man had been turned to stone in the first place, he was going to make sure Ganondorf couldn't get his hands on the item that had that ability.

"Ahem." Link hid a smile as Ganondorf jumped up with a start and whirled round, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He recovered quickly. "Are you ready for another session?"

Link held up his hand and nodded. A small shard glowed there, a product of the last excursion in the _Nayru_. By this time the other two had half of their triangles nearly filled, and it wasn't until both Link and Zelda had pressed him that Ganondorf had gotten serious about finding Link's pieces. Something odd in Link's mind took pleasure in forcing the old man to treat the two of them evenly in the hunt; but he could not figure out why, as Ganondorf had never shown any hostility toward him.

Ganondorf led him out on the deck. "I sense that we are moving closer to the site," he said. "We will likely find more pieces, more easily, and closer together. He motioned toward the shards of pearl Link wore around his neck. "If we bring Zelda here, we might be able to find another one of yours and draw it to us, rather than going out to look for it."

Zelda had been speaking with Delmar, but came quickly when she heard the others were looking for her. "What's the matter?" Link asked when he saw the perturbed look on her face.

"There are stormy seas all around us," she said. "Nothing serious, and nothing nearby, but Delmar says the sea is much more active than he's ever seen it."

"Well, as long as he steers us clear, there's no problem," said Link.

She nodded, and turned to Ganondorf. "You believe there is a piece nearby?"

He offered both of them his hands. "More than one, if we're lucky."

The three of them joined hands, and Link closed his eyes and concentrated as he had been taught. Unfortunately, his mind seemed to wander more than the others', because images of palm trees and sandy beaches often interrupted his meditations. He figured he was overdue for a vacation.

He blinked, his concentration broken for a moment, then his eyes rested on an albatross flying past. He watched it arc through the air, strangely mesmerized. He had watched the seabirds many times, seagulls and skuas, and paid them no more attention than he did insects. He wondered what it would be like to fly like a bird, to gracefully ride the air like a boat over the waves.

His mind wandered, and he imagined flying through the air as a gull. His uncle had told him a story about a gull that had no interest in fighting for fish like the other birds, that only wanted to fly. Higher and higher, above the clouds, just to see how high he could go, how fast he could dive. To be something other than a simple gull, and yet to take pride in the gift of swift, windy flight that only seabirds possessed.

The gull flew higher and higher toward the sun, every time. He wanted to touch it, the bright golden disc. Link had laughed and asked his uncle if the bird's wings had melted off, like those of a foolish boy in another story. His uncle always laughed and said no, if people were meant to fly, they'd be born with wings.

The gull had a human friend, a little girl that gave him food when he forgot to eat. She had treats for all of them, but this one was her favorite. A little blonde girl with a brightly colored dress. She would wait up in the watchtower for him, looking across the sea with a spyglass.

The gull flew down, landed on the railing of the watchtower. He flapped his wings expectantly, watching her with crafty eyes. She held out her hand, crumbs of some tasty golden pastry in her palm. Sweet bread, so good. And a bright sparkly thing. The gull seized it and took flight. The girl did not mind. She called up to him, telling him it was a gift.

The gull flew over open water, many many miles, with the sparkly thing in his beak. It flew toward a small dot rolling over the water. The dot grew larger and became a ship. As the gull flew over the ship, three people stood on the deck with hands joined.

Link shook himself out of his meditative state, just to see a seagull swoop down and drop something from its beak. On impulse he caught it, and to his surprise a small grain of bright gold sat in the palm of his hand.

"That's remarkable!" Zelda exclaimed, freeing her hands and moving a step closer to him. "You pulled it here by yourself?"

"My sister gave it to me." The words popped out of his mouth, still in a trancelike state. He shook his head. "Sorry, I was daydreaming. But hey, it worked, right?"

Ganondorf nodded. "The more pieces you collect, the more ways you can get the ones that remain. You are improving quickly." It was a genuine compliment, but his troubled face did not match the sentiment. He cleared his throat. "There are likely other shards nearby. Would you like to try again?"

--

The next day dawned clear and cool. There were shards to be found at the bottom of the sea again, so Link and Zelda began to prep the _Nayru_.

As they began hooking up the cables used to drop it into the water, Captain Delmar came on deck. "Thought I should warn you," he said with a troubled expression. "There's a hurricane off to the far west of us, a good ways off, but moving quickly. You'll likely have to pack up early today."

"Thank you, Captain," said Zelda. "I'm sure as long as you keep an eye on it for us, we'll be fine."

Ganondorf emerged from the lab with the radio headset he used on deck when the other two used the submersible. "All set?"

Link nodded. "Just about." He secured the last of the equipment, and then he and Zelda climbed into the submersible.

Ganondorf operated the motorized winches that lowered the _Nayru_ into the sea. He had become quite competent at operating the machinery, even though when they had first met him it was clear he had never seen any of it before. He had a light touch that made the operation less bumpy than one of the sailors did it.

The _Nayru_ slipped beneath the waves, and they watched the now-familiar sight of bubbles rising to the surface. There was very little else to look at in the Dead Sea, only debris and the occasional scrawny fish.

About halfway down, they turned on the lights, and began scanning the watery depths.

--

Captain Delmar scowled at his computers. He'd never known the marine weather service to be _this_ far off. Then again, this hurricane didn't act like any he'd ever seen. It moved _against_ the trade winds, and followed a bizarrely haphazard path. It was all Delmar could do to steer out of its way. A number of times he joked to his crew that it was chasing them, but he began to wonder.

Still, the skies were clear where he was now, and as long as they had no serious engine trouble, they could stay out of harm's way. He stared out the windows when not scrutinizing his computers, watching for any hint of the telltale cirrus clouds that heralded the coming of a hurricane.

Suddenly something on the horizon caught his eye. It looked like a swell, but too far away to possibly be a simple wave. He double-checked the monitor, scanning for any tsunami alerts. The computer stayed blank.

He turned back to the ocean. It was impossible…and yet he was staring straight at it. He had been on the sea too long not to recognize it for what it was. An enormous wave, on the opposite side from the hurricane, coming straight for them.

He slammed his hand down on the alarm button and shouted into the PA system. "Alert! Rogue wave! All hands, to safety stations!"

Ganondorf's head jerked up from his station. "There's a large wave coming in from the east," he said into his microphone. "Can the submersible's attachment cord withstand it?"

Zelda's voice cracked over the radio. "Let the metal cord go free and it should be fine. We're quite shallow, actually, so give it a lot of slack and we probably won't even notice."

"Understood." He pulled back a lever that locked the line in place. "I'm going to take shelter, so I'll leave the station for a moment. I'll keep the headset on, all right?"

"All right. We should be fine, don't worry."

Ganondorf glanced back up at the rapidly rising water but said nothing. He ran to the cabins and shut himself in his room.

"Damn it!" Delmar, still at the captain's deck, snarled at the water bearing down on him. There was a strong possibility that it could capsize the ship, let alone damage the _Nayru_. Not to mention shatter the glass in the deck. "All hands, brace for impact!" he shouted.

The water dropped low, and Ganondorf felt his stomach fall with it. Then came an upward jerk, and before he even realized what had happened, he flew across the room of his cabin and struck the other side. His head spinning, he realized he must have been cursing, for he heard Link's voice shouting at him through the radio. "What's going on up there?"

Ganondorf struggled to his feet, feeling off balance. As he stood, he realized it was because the ship itself was leaning hard to the side. "The ship's listing. We took a pretty hard hit."

Zelda's voice sounded strained, yet cool under pressure. "Can you get back to the station, and haul us up?"

"I think so. I just need a few moments." He staggered to the door, alarms ringing in his ears. Walking carefully down the hall, his boots crunched broken glass. He raised his head and uttered a startled curse.

"What's wrong?" Zelda demanded.

"The Captain!" Delmar sat in his deck chair, eyes closed and head lolling to the side, his face streaked with blood. Ganondorf leaped up onto the Captain's workstation and peered into the man's face. "He's hurt, hard to say how badly. Unconscious at least." Ganondorf studied the bloody cuts. "I think he was hit by flying glass. It's soaking wet in here. Hold on, I need to call the ship's medic, and then I'll fetch you."

He touched the intercom button, but heard nothing. "Damn it, the PA system's out too. I'll have to run for the doctor. Are you two hanging in there?"

"We barely felt the wave," Link answered. "We've got plenty of oxygen, and I don't see any damage to the submersible, so take your time helping the Captain and crew."

"Understood." Ganondorf left the Captain and ran off in search of the medic.

On one of the unbroken computer screens, a white swirl banked hard to the east, making a beeline toward the cursor that marked the ship's position.

--

"I'm back at the station." Ganondorf's voice crackled over the radio once more, a good forty-five minutes after the last time they had heard him. "I'll start hauling you up."

"How is everyone?" Link asked. "How is the ship?"

"Delmar's all right, the medic said, just took a hard hit on the head. There's a few more injured in one way or another. The ship's still listing, but not as badly. One of the engines is out, but the crew's working on it now." They could hear the whine of machinery as he started the engines that wound the metal cord. "That storm Delmar mention is coming, but you should be safe on deck before it comes."

Ganondorf breathed a sigh of relief as the winches slowly pulled the _Nayru_ from the bottom of the sea. He would have liked to bring it up more quickly, but Zelda had explained to him the dangers of decompression sickness, and he knew he could only do that in an extreme emergency.

Still, the storm Delmar had mentioned seemed to be blowing in awfully quickly. Already the clear sky had grown dark, and he thought he could hear the growl of thunder far off in the distance. Still, they had enough time to strap down in their cabins before it came.

Suddenly the cables groaned, and with a screeching sound, ground to a halt. "What was that?" Zelda's voice nearly shouted in his ear before it even stopped.

"Winch is jammed," Ganondorf said tensely. "This is a little above my ability…hold on, I'll get one of the mechanics to help."

He sprinted off to the engine room and nearly bashed the door in. "I need someone to help with the submersible uptake system!" He shouted over the din. A sailor raised his hand to volunteer and came running to meet him.

Over the headset he could hear Link and Zelda talking. "If we get far enough up, we should be able to make it the rest of the way just using the _Nayru_'s engines, right?" Link asked.

"Yes, but we need to be a little further up," came Zelda's tense reply. "They're not strong enough to carry us up through the whole length of the ocean. The cable's not just for keeping us tethered to the ship."

As the sailor bent down to examine the winch motors, Ganondorf saw lightning flash across the ever-darkening sky. He decided to keep this information to himself.

"It's jammed good," the sailor said, his face grim. "There's a manual crank, but it's only for getting the submersible out of the water once it's surfaced, and onto the ship. Ten of us couldn't bring it up."

"Leave that to me." To the sailor's amazement, Ganondorf gripped the crank with both hands, the mark on his hand glowing bright. The old man turned the crank with ease, as if merely raising a curtain in a theater. Still, it was slow going, and he glanced uneasily at the scudding clouds overhead.

"Zelda, I need you to turn on the motors to get the _Nayru _to the surface as quickly as possible," he instructed, panting.

"Understood." A dazzling claw of lightning ripped across the sky, accompanied by the roar of thunder. "What was that?"

"Weather's turning sour." Ganondorf doubled his efforts, and motioned for the sailor to return to the engine room. Once the man was gone, he said between breaths, "Link, Zelda, listen carefully. If something happens, remember…the Triforce will protect you."

"But I only have a few pieces," Link protested.

"Have faith in its power." The wind began to pick up, the leaning ship rolling slightly. "You are the descendant of the Ancient Hero, and Zelda is the descendant of the Hylian Royal Family. It is bound to you."

"Yeah, but…"

Hard splashes of rain struck Ganondorf in the face, and he paused ever so slightly to wrap his cloak around him. "Listen to me! If something happens, you must use its power. Your ancestors' spirits have endured over millennia."

Drops of water turned to blinding sheets. The wind roared overhead, joined by claps of thunder. "I'm turning on the engines now," Zelda stated.

Suddenly the winch strained, whined, and something snapped. The handle struck Ganondorf hard, and the wheels unwound with blinding speed. Link and Zelda heard him curse in two distinctively different languages as they felt a strange sensation like a kite being loosed into the sky.

"What's going on?!" Link yelled into his microphone.

"Hold on!" They could get nothing more out of him as they felt themselves jerk to a stop, then rise and fall with what must have been building waves on the surface.

"Link, put on your survival suit," Zelda ordered over the fuzzy radio.

"Got it."

"Engage the auxiliary engines."

"Engaged."

"Drop the research arm and any spent oxygen tanks."

"Wh-all right, it's done. Anything else?"

Her voice came tense. "Just hold on."

They heard Ganondorf speaking, not to them and not cursing. It had a slow, steady rhythm, like a prayer. They heard their names mentioned several times, and also that of Nayru. Zelda had a strange feeling he was not talking about the submersible.

--

"Captain, you really should lie down," the medic urged, as Delmar took his seat in the driving rain to steer the ship.

"Not while my First Mate and Miss Nohasen are still down there," Delmar snapped. "I've got to try and keep the ship steady enough so that we can at least attempt to get them on board."

"Captain, Engine Two is out!" one of the sailors yelled through the cabin's speakers.

"Blast it all!" Delmar absently brushed his hand to his face, flinching when he touched the bandaged cuts. He stared out over the darkening deck and did a double-take.

The steel cord had broken. But Ganondorf held it in his bare hands, braced against the railing of the deck as the ship rose and fell. In a flash of lightning he could see the old man's hands stained bright red.

He grabbed a megaphone. "You fool, get in here! They're lost!"

Either Ganondorf did not hear him, or did not care. He stood as solid as stone, with his back to the captain's deck, so Delmar could not see his face.

The sea dipped down low, then rise high in the sky. Surf crashed over the deck, and hid Ganondorf completely from view. When the wave snaked back into the ocean, the old man was still there, holding on with grim determination.

Delmar turned to the other side. An enormous wave, nearly the size of the one that had struck out of a clear blue sky, rose to meet them. Delmar whirled round and screamed into the megaphone. "_Get out of there!!!_"

The wave crashed over the deck like a giant's hammer. Delmar nearly fell out of his chair, even though he gripped it so hard that the stuffing came loose where his nails rent the fabric. After a moment of queasy disorientation, he raised his head and stared into the blackness of the storm.

Ganondorf and the _Nayru _were gone.


	12. Sentinel

"Man overboard!" Captain Delmar shouted into the PA system, adding to the cacophony of yelling, alarms, and the roar of thunder. The engines ground to a halt as he ran down to the deck, doubtful he would be able to see anyone but unable to just leave the three to the mercy of the waves.

He stared out into the driving rain and angry wind, three sailors emerging from the ship's interiors carrying life preservers and an inflatable lifeboat. Holding tight to the rail, he scanned the gale-shredded water for any sign of life.

Nothing.

"Do you see them, Captain?" one of the sailors demanded, his voice nearly carried away in the wind.

Delmar scowled, the bottom dropping out of his stomach. "No," he said finally. "They're lost."

He didn't budge from the rail, even though the tossing waves threatened to throw him over as well. The men glanced at one another, waiting for orders.

Suddenly he pulled his head back and yelled, "Get back to your places, men! Start up the engines again, there's nothing more we can do here!"

They scattered. Delmar ran back to his chair as quickly as he could across the rolling, pitching deck.

"Captain, we can't get the engines restarted again," came a strained voice over the intercom.

A dazzling fork of lightning crackled overhead, the roar of thunder rolling over all like some heavenly boulder. The floor beneath Delmar heaved up, then slammed down again, knocking him out of his chair and onto the floor.

"Captain! We're taking on water!"

Delmar snatched up his radio. "Mayday-mayday-mayday, this is the _Scarlet Dragon_, Mayday. Location forty degrees twenty minutes north, sixteen degrees four minutes west. Caught in stormy seas and taking on water, over."

"Deploy the lifeboats!" He yelled into the intercom.

Sailors poured out of the doors, grabbing the winches that held the lifeboats. The _Scarlet Dragon_ had lifeboats that could withstand the battering waves, built almost like cocoons, into which the sailors would strap themselves so they would not be hurt.

"_Scarlet Dragon_, this is Coast Guard Station." Delmar turned back to the radio. "Cannot send out aerial rescue crews in this weather, can you withstand a few hours, over."

"Coast Guard Station, this is the _Scarlet Dragon_. We're now deploying into A-grade lifeboats with homing transmitters, over."

"Roger. Sending out cutter rescue crew, over."

The first lifeboat hit the water. Donning a survival suit, the first sailor straddled the rail to jump over. Delmar pulled on his own survival suit.

Like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky, a ray of pure sunshine hit the water. It expanded quickly, pushing back the clouds, the wind, the rain. The waves settled as if some angry god, now placated, had returned to favor the sailors once more.

Delmar and the rest of the crew stared with expressions varying from puzzled to joyful, as they saw not the hurricane's eye but clear skies for miles around.

--

With a sensation like a snapped rubber band, the _Nayru_ jerked backwards and took off like a loosed balloon, tumbling end over end. Both Link and Zelda instinctively wrapped their arms around themselves, gripping the sides of their seats hard. As the submersible spun like a gyroscope, Link could see a golden glow out of the corner of his eye, on the hand where the Triforce shone partially embedded in his flesh.

Despite the pressure on his body, Link strained to open his eyes and saw the entire craft surrounded by a halo of soft blue light. As the _Nayru _tumbled through the water, the blue shield cushioned blows against submerged stones and the ocean floor. He stared in fascination as the ship ricocheted off an undersea cliff without giving them so much as whiplash.

The spinning and tumbling began to slow, and he could see that they were slowly sinking toward the bottom of the ocean. "Link?" he heard Zelda ask, in little more than a whisper.

"Zelda, are you all right?"

"Considering the circumstances, yes. Are you?"

"Yes. This blue wall…is the Triforce doing it?"

"I think so."

They said nothing more until the _Nayru_ settled at the sea floor, where the shield flickered and died. The golden glow faded from their hands, the pitch black of the depths surrounding them. Both waited in silence for something more to happen, and when it didn't, Link said, "Well, this is just great. We survive being pitched into a wall just to slowly suffocate at the bottom of the sea."

Zelda rubbed the back of her hand. "No…something will happen, I can feel it. Link, did you recognize this place before the light went out? It's where we first found the ruins of the castle."

He stared around in vain. "Yeah, I think you're right…not sure what good that does us, though."

They waited in the dark for several minutes, listening to the bubbling of the water and the slight shift of the craft. Then, in the everlasting dark, they spied a pinpoint of light.

"What do you suppose that is?" Zelda asked.

Link frowned, not encouraged. "Probably just bioluminescent fish…if this were any other time, I'd be interested, but now…"

The glow grew larger. As it neared, it seemed to take the shape of a human being. Someone large in body, with sweeping robes. "Is it Ganondorf?" Zelda asked.

"No idea," Link replied. "There's no way a person could survive down here. The pressure alone would kill them."

As the ghostly figure approached, they could discern more features. A bearded man, dressed in red robes with a blue shirt. On his head he wore a golden crown.

Zelda drew in her breath. "Is that…?

Link stared. Zelda's ancestor, Daphnes Nohasen. The one who had sunk the ancient kingdom.

_You see this man, you kill him_, Ganondorf had said. Link braced himself, wondering what warranted such a warning.

The semitransparent figure inclined its head toward Zelda. "Greetings, Princess. Forgive me for troubling you, but I had to speak with you."

"Princess?" Link demanded. The old man seemed to ignore him.

"You are both in grave danger," said Daphnes. He spread his arms to indicate the watery depths around him. "You are sitting in what was once my kingdom, at one time a beautiful land full of rich golden fields and happy people. But great darkness descended on the land, and in the bitter end I had to sacrifice it in order to keep the great evil from spreading to the rest of the world."

"Was it an epidemic?" Link asked, eager to see if his guess had been right. Daphnes shook his head.

"The Great Darkness that befell my kingdom was an evil sorcerer, who stole the most precious thing we had, the very magic and power that kept it whole." He motioned toward Zelda's marked hand. "The Triforce…he could not take it all, for the traits of Courage and Wisdom were repelled by his black heart. But he maintained his grip on Power, and used it to send my kingdom into an age of terror and despair."

"Courage and Wisdom?" Zelda glanced at her marked hand, then at Link.

Daphnes smiled sadly. "Your ancestors were the bearers of the other pieces, this role ordained to them by the Goddesses who wished to see the evil sorcerer defeated. But in the end, it was not enough. The sorcerer was too powerful, and managed to take by force the pieces your ancestors held. By this time he had such a hold on Power that he could make the other pieces obey his foul orders…so before he could cast the spell, I took it from him and wished for my own kingdom to be buried underwater along with him. Had I not done so, his evil would have spread even beyond Hyrule."

"Let me guess." Link studied Daphnes' face. "The evil sorcerer's name was…"

"Ganon. Or in his human form, Ganondorf, if you believed there was any human left in him." Daphnes nodded. "Your ancestor sealed him into stone with the help of a magic sword. Even with that, and the Triforce broken apart, and Hyrule destroyed, Ganon could not be completely eliminated from this world. So I stayed as sentinel down here among the ruins of my kingdom…until you brought that horrible curse back up to the light of day."

"Hang on a minute," Link demanded. "How the hell were we supposed to know that lump of rock was some kind of curse? This place has been underwater for centuries!"

Daphnes inclined his head ever so slightly. "I apologize, I can see that you come from a world where magic has little meaning. Indeed, you could not see me when you first came, for the very reason that you can see me now; you possessed only the tiniest shard of the Golden Power, that your ancestor had taken with her when she left to build a new kingdom. So I tried to warn you in other ways, both before you left and then again when you returned."

Zelda's face blanched with the sudden revelation. "You were the saboteur aboard the _Scarlet Dragon_."

Link scowled at him, reliving the burst pipes and oil spills all over again. "Couldn't you have gotten our attention in a less annoying way? Like leaving a note?"

"My abilities are limited as a ghost," Daphnes said. "Also, Ganondorf is and always has been a crafty manipulator. Doubtless he would twist my words into some other meaning. He played the King before me this way, making him believe he was an ally before he stole the Triforce under his nose…and then killed him."

"But still you persisted," Daphnes continued, "So I had to resort to the last bit of magic that my kingdom still possesses: an artifact known as the Wind Waker. It was a wand that could harness the powers of the gods, in the form of wind and storms. I absorbed it into my spirit, so its power is one with me."

"A wand that controls the wind?" Zelda's knuckles whitened as she clenched her hands. "Those storms…the hurricanes that drove us away and then separated us from the ship…that was your doing."

"Idiot. Are you trying to get us killed?" Link snarled.

Daphnes made a little bow of apology, but his eyes burned into theirs with a strange fire. "I am sorry, but it is my duty to ensure that the King of Evil never regains his hold on the Triforce. I will do anything necessary to fulfill that goal."

Link felt chills run down his spine. He heard Zelda speak in an unsteady voice. "So will you kill us, then?"

Shaking his head, Daphnes replied, "No, Princess, not unless that is my final resort, and there is much we can still do. All I ask for now is that you listen to me and do as I ask."

Link laughed softly. "Well, you've got a captive audience, so go ahead."

Daphnes pointed to his marked hand. "If you have noticed, Ganon has drawn the most pieces to himself, then to Zelda, and the fewest to you. Your ancestor was the great Hero who defeated him, who sealed him into stone with the Master Sword. You still have the sword that you pulled from his head, I trust?"

Link nodded. "Well, I did…it's on the _Scarlet Dragon_. You didn't sink it in the hurricane, did you?"

"No. But make sure you regain it quickly, for it is the only thing that can hurt Ganon. You will need to seal him away again."

Link remembered Ganondorf's fervent attempts to steal the sword or make Link throw it overboard. His actions made more sense now, though Link had figured that he might not have any affection toward something that had been stuck in his skull for several hundred years.

"Listen carefully, for this is the most important part," said Daphnes. "You _must not_ seek the Triforce. He is still missing a shard, so his grip on Power is not complete. That alone would be bad enough, but you can be sure that he will continue to play the innocent fool until the entire artifact has been reformed. Then he will wrench it from you and a new Dark Age will visit the world, not only what's left of this one but yours as well." His eyes burned into them as he searched their faces. "Do you understand?"

Link and Zelda nodded.

"I can't emphasize Ganon's ability to hoodwink others enough. An entire kingdom has fallen to his wily deeds. You must not listen to anything he says, you must not let him know that you have spoken to me, that I am present at all. Do you understand?"

"Yes, we get it," Link said, annoyed. Daphnes spoke as if to a child, and Link had not heard that tone of voice in a long, long time.

Daphnes narrowed his eyes, and his voice lowered an octave. "I will do anything…_anything_ possible to ensure the Dark King does not return. Remember that."

He raised his hand, and the _Nayru_ rose from the ocean floor, dirt and grime dripping from the bottom. Both Link and Zelda kept their gaze fixed on the King, his words ringing in their ears even after he grew smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared from their sight.

--

The _Nayru_ surfaced, and they could see the _Scarlet Dragon_ just a mile or so off to their left. Zelda released a flare and another one aboard the ship fired in response. The ship slowly grew larger as it came to retrieve them.

"Link," Zelda said slowly, staring out over the sea as if deep in thought. "Do you trust Daphnes?"

He frowned. "No, but I don't trust Ganondorf either, that's for sure."

She stroked the back of her marked hand. "There's so much we don't know…I get the feeling they're both manipulating us for their own ends. Don't you?"

Link rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, Daphnes' kind of weirded me out, if that makes any sense. His all-or-nothing attitude bothers me a bit. Of course, Ganondorf might do the same thing if we don't do what _he_ says. He might be exactly the same, he's just better at hiding it."

"Link." Zelda stared unseeing at the approaching ship. "Did Daphnes show any remorse for what he had done? To the people Ganondorf told us about?"

"He had to do it, Zelda. Otherwise Ganondorf would have moved on to conquer the rest of the world. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision."

She said nothing.

The _Scarlet Dragon_ pulled up as close as it could to them, and one of the sailors lowered a line equipped with a clamp, affixing it to the submersible. The sailors brought it up via the hand crank until Link and Zelda were safely aboard the ship.

"It's a miracle!" The two were caught off guard as Captain Delmar embraced them both. "We thought for sure we'd lost you!"

"Good to see you too, Delmar," Link said as well as he could while the captain squeezed the air out of him.

"Captain, where is Ganondorf?" Zelda asked.

He shook his head sadly. "He went overboard in the storm. He was trying to save the _Nayru_. I'm sorry."

"He's not dead." They all stared at Zelda as she made her sudden pronouncement.

"I'm sorry, Miss Nohasen, but he is," Delmar insisted. "I guess you rode out the storm in the submersible, but there's no way he could have survived."

"Link." She turned to him. "You can feel it too, can't you?"

He opened his mouth to object, but said nothing. Somehow he knew she was right, and it had something to do with the marks on their hands. The golden shards pulled out to sea, as if calling to a lost sibling.

"Captain. He is alive, and we must find him. Please continue our expedition," said Zelda.

Delmar scratched his head. "Well, the ship wasn't too badly damaged, we can certainly go on…I think you're setting yourselves up for disappointment, though."

Zelda turned to Link. She said nothing, but he understood, and nodded.

Whether they were to assist him, or seal him again into stone, Ganondorf needed to be found.


	13. Forgotten Island

He awakened with salt water in his stomach and the smell of tidal refuse in his nose, like the nightmare that haunted him all too frequently. But the stench of rotten flesh was missing, the all-encompassing odor that had further poisoned his soul, back during the first flooding of Hyrule.

The mark on his hand lay dull, finally resting after working for hours just to keep him alive. Though not complete, it could still keep his body functioning in the face of the storm and the waves. He rose slowly, body battered and bruised but all of these pains merely superficial.

The sun shone down happily, almost manically, after the impromptu storm. The storm, of course, was not natural. It reeked of magic. He could sense it all too easily. Not just the presence of magic, but the source. A source he had not been able to sense until he had regained the shards of the power that had been taken from him.

He stood slowly, looking around him. A small island, little more than a rocky atoll in the Great Dead Sea. It bore no signs of human habitation; or, at least, not to the untrained eye, and not anything recent.

Ganondorf walked slowly up the small slope onto the weedy vegetation, rushes and small scrub trees that cling to whatever home they can find in endless water. Up the hill lay a scattering of stones, not naturally weathered but once hewn by human hands. It was all that remained of what had been a bomb shop hundreds of years ago, on a place called Windfall Island.

He turned and walked further up the atoll, following a path etched into his memory, the original long since gone. At the top, nearly hidden in the tall grass and timid flowers, stood larger stones that had once been a windmill. Ganondorf bent down and picked up a glass jar, still whole, that had lain here from time out of mind. At one point it had held a healing brew made of small jelly creatures that doubtless had also disappeared from this world.

"So even from the ashes, only ashes remain," he said slowly, the sound of his voice not startling him at all in the silence. He was far too used to speaking only to himself.

Ganondorf sat down on one of the stones, staring out to sea. Only one power in all the world could have summoned a storm like that. And only one person in all the world would know how to wield it.

"So, you still live, or whatever you might call it." He spoke to a phantom, a relic like himself, the only remnants of the kingdom beneath the waves. "I suppose I can't assume you'd quit, even after all this. Even after you'd won." His expression darkened. "But I suppose you knew, no mere mortal, even in spectral form, cannot wholly destroy what the gods made. As long as the shards remain, they can be put back together."

Ganondorf looked down at the mark on his hand. It glowed slightly, as if peevish that it would be pressed into work again. "Let's see if these two are smarter than the last ones."

He clasped his hands together, and bid Power seek out its siblings.

--

Zelda sat in the windowless control room, on a stack of boxes Delmar had provided for her so that she would be protected from the broken glass. Delmar himself sat at the wheel, a perpetual perplexed expression on his face as she rubbed her hand and stared out to sea. "You all right, Ms. Nohasen?"

She nodded. "Yes, just concentrating."

He scratched his head. "You really think that tattoo will lead you to him?"

Zelda turned to look at him. "The compass led us to the old kingdom, didn't it?"

Leaning uncomfortably back and forth in the chair, he said after a few moments, "Well, to be honest, I thought that was just luck."

She turned back to the ocean without reply. He shrugged and turned back to the controls, trying to tamp down his curiosity. As long as he was paid and the ship wasn't destroyed, that was all he needed to know. Or so he tried to tell himself.

Link popped his head in the door. "How's it coming?"

"We're getting closer," Zelda replied, half out of it.

Captain Delmar turned to him. "How are the repairs going?"

Link kicked a few larger shards of glass into the corner. "We've been fully functional for a while now, it's just a matter of cleanup at this point. I'll get a broom and start sweeping this up."

"Good work, Link. The weather's fine, so I'll give you a hand in here with the cleaning."

Link turned and walked back toward the storage rooms. He paused, then sneaked over to the door to Zelda's chambers. Opening the door softly, he stole inside and picked his way over the clothing she had not bothered to pick up in her eagerness to find Ganondorf. Pushing a few delicate items out of the way, he bent down under the bed and took a screwdriver from his belt, undoing the screws that held the Master Sword in place. Once they were all loose, he eased the sword out of its hiding place and carried it carefully out of the room. In the storage room, he strapped the sword into its makeshift holder and slung the whole thing over his shoulder. He picked up some brooms and dustbins, then returned back to the control room.

He handed one broom to Delmar, who simply stared at the young man carefully sweeping the floor with the enormous ornate sword strapped to his back. "You're a strange one, you know that?"

Zelda broke out of her reverie to frown at Link. "You don't believe everything Daphnes says, do you?"

"No, and I don't believe everything Ganondorf says, either," Link replied. "It doesn't hurt to be prepared."

She sighed. "I suppose not." Turning back to the ocean, she said. "We're really close, now…is that an island up ahead?"

Delmar stopped sweeping and looked at the computer's charts. "It's just a little islet, doesn't even have a proper name…the map calls it C-12."

"He's there." Zelda suddenly stood, moving slowly toward the deck. "He's out there, on that island."

"You're serious." Delmar ordered the crew to lower one of the lifeboats. "This I gotta see."

--

The three of them stepped onto the shore of C-12 to see someone moving down the hill to greet them. "I don't believe it," Delmar said, shading his eyes. "It's not possible." He spoke without fear or awe, but in total denial.

Link stepped in front of the other two, the hand on the hilt of the sword. "I think you have some explaining to do," he said as Ganondorf approached.

Ganondorf gave him a look halfway between a pleased smile and a sarcastic smirk. "Oh, so you're actually going to let me tell my side of the story this time, eh? Well, that's already more than your ancestor would have done."

"My ancestor killed you, didn't he?" Link said, more of a challenge than a question. "Or sealed you into stone, or whatever you want to call it. I imagine he must have had a very good reason for doing so."

"He did, but his pure intentions were corrupted by the lies of the one who actually destroyed Hyrule…twice."

Zelda blinked. "Twice?"

Ganondorf raised his hand in a sweeping gesture, indicating the rocky outcrop on which they all stood. "The few stones you see scattered here are all that remains of Windfall Island, a scrawny settlement made after the First Flood." The shadows in his face deepened. "The King at the time of the Flood stated that the world needed to be saved from a Great Evil. The danger was real. I know it intimately. It was me."

Link tightened the grip on his sword. "So Daphnes was right."

Ganondorf turned slowly to face him. "There is more to the story, boy. As there is in any war."

"Go on," Zelda urged, breathless. Delmar sat silently in the lifeboat, listening.

Ganondorf touched the back of his marked hand. "The Land of Hyrule, the great country the Goddesses made, drew its power and prosperity from the Triforce, a relic left behind after the land's creation. Many men over many lifetimes sought to claim it. How they fared is now lost even to my memory. But centuries ago, when I was still young, I took it. It rejected me even then. That should have been my first clue, that I could claim Power but Courage and Wisdom would be repelled by my intentions. In the beginning, they were pure; I wished to give the land to my own people, who eked out a miserable existence in the desert. But somehow it could sense deeper darkness in my soul, and Power corrupted me.

"There was a war, as there always is. I held on to the land for seven years. But then a young man, the ancestor of your ancestor, struck me down. Unfortunately, Power had become too deeply entwined in my soul, and all they could do was seal me away in some dark corner of that world.

"What became of that young man, no one knows. Some years after that battle, he left this world for another, leaving the Triforce he'd found behind. I awakened to seek it. With no one left to take his place, and no one to claim its sibling, Wisdom, the King of that time took matters into his own hands. The King Daphnes used the Wind Waker, which could summon the power of the gods without the Triforce."

Ganondorf's face twisted into a primal rage. "He told his people to run to high ground, so that he could flood the country and seal me beneath the water, one of my few weaknesses. He said the Goddesses had spoken to him. If this were true, he would have rescued all their children, but he did not."

He turned to Link and Zelda, yellow eyes blazing. "My people, the Gerudo, whom I had worked so hard to save, he destroyed in a matter of hours. Wiped them out completely. Erased them. They could not swim. They could not sail. They were obliterated from existence. By this time they had renounced any ties they had to me and lived peacefully alongside the Hylians. But Daphnes decided that they must be destroyed, so that they would neither ally with me nor produce another Dark King. As if only Gerudo held darkness in their souls!"

Ganondorf turned his head and focused his hatred out over the rolling Sea. "The blessing of the Gods, he said it was. It was not a blessing but a curse, not only on my people but his as well, and the others who lived there. The Kokiri, forest-dwellers, climbed to the tops of the highest trees. The Gorons, the mountainous rock-people, scrambled to the summits of the volcanoes. Not all survived. Not even all of the Hylians, the King's chosen people. The ill, the lame, those who would not heed the warnings - Daphnes left them all behind, left the survivors to pick up the shards of their lost world and attempt to try again."

Pointing to the scattered stones, he said, "Then began a new age, free from Darkness but infused with hardship tenfold. The Sea never became a real body of water, only a method of keeping hidden what lay below. So there were no proper fish, few ways to make a living on what were once the tops of mountains. The Kokiri lost their human form. The Gorons became homeless wanderers. The Zora, fish-people, could not tolerate the harsh water and took to the land, then to the air.

"This island became a center of what commerce was available. The remnants of Hyrule kept a desperate peace, one of men in a life raft who know they can only survive if no one rocks the boat. So it went for hundreds of years."

Ganondorf paused, watching the others carefully. Zelda stood with rapturous attention, though Link had started looking doubtful when Ganondorf spoke of flying fish-people. Delmar looked slightly unnerved, not by the story but by being in the presence of what he must have deemed a madman.

Casting his gaze over the forgotten ruins, Ganondorf said, "Then, at one point, I could feel Wisdom moving across the seas. I sought it, bringing home as many clues as possible. For a long time, nothing. Then one day, a boy dressed in the same clothing as my ancient enemy arrived to rescue his sister, whom I had mistaken as a possible Bearer of Wisdom. I confronted him, and who should arrive but the Bearer of Wisdom herself?"

He cast his eyes to the ground. "That was another mistake. I should have told them, then and there, who they were. They did not know their own destiny; it had been locked beneath the Sea centuries before they were born. But I was greedy; I tried to take Wisdom from her. They escaped…and Daphnes found them."

The lines in Ganondorf's ancient face deepened. "Daphnes had one goal…to destroy me utterly. He did not care who or what he threw into the abyss along with me. We both raced to piece together the broken Triforce…he beat me to it. With a few words, he condemned Hyrule to the depths of the Sea, and the boy struck me once more with the only weapon which could cause me any harm." Here Ganondorf indicated the sword on Link's back.

A dull fire lit up the old man's eyes, as if from a lost hope that has been chased too long to attempt to snatch even within reach. "But the Triforce is not destroyed. Hyrule is in ruins, the settlements that the people tried to substitute it are in ruins, but the work of the Goddesses cannot be completely destroyed. You have seen what it can do." He raised his hand, the last missing piece standing out in the glow of the mark. "I have told you my story. I can do no more. I cannot restore Hyrule with Power alone, nor can I let the lost land lie, not when there is still a grain of hope."

He waited. Link and Zelda exchanged glances. Zelda could see the hesitation in Link's eyes. After all, seeking the Triforce was the one thing Daphnes had told them not to do. Regardless of whether Ganondorf was involved or not.

"I don't know what to say," was Zelda's soft reply. "We don't really know anything about our ancestor's country. All we have to go on is the hearsay of two old enemies."

"You have Wisdom," Ganondorf told her. "What does it say to you?"

Zelda looked down at her hand, then out over the sea. She had a strange feeling she had been standing here before; the ruins seemed familiar, and she could see shadows in the back of her mind, silhouettes of the buildings that had once stood there. She felt a deep ache in her heart, a pull toward the open ocean, below and beyond.

At some point, her ancestor - or ancestors - had stood at this point and mourned what had been buried beneath.

She turned to Link. "Link, do you trust me?"

He looked surprised, then full of resolve. "I do."

Zelda nodded. "We must restore our ancient home."

Back in the lifeboat, Captain Delmar shook his head. "You've gotta be kidding me."


	14. Looking Forward

Link jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Well, if we're going further, let's get back on the boat."

Ganondorf shook his head. "We are lucky in that Daphnes cannot sense the Triforce Bearers' movements, but he certainly can follow that enormous ship. We'll need another method of transportation."

"We'll take the _Nayru_, then," Zelda suggested.

"Daphnes will be on the lookout for that as well," Ganondorf informed her. "I have enough power to create a small vessel for us, along with any provisions we might require."

"Nothing doing," said Captain Delmar. "If you think I'm coming with you on this mad pipe dream, you're out of your minds."

"You're not coming with us," Ganondorf said with authority. "We need you to take the _Scarlet Dragon_ back to port. While he's following you, to ensure you return to the mainland, we can sneak off this island and resume our search."

Delmar looked pleadingly at Zelda. "Miss Nohasen, you can't be serious about this. What about your company?"

She shook her head. "I have dedicated my life to finding the lost country of my ancestors. I've already willed the company to the appropriate people, in the event that I do not return."

Turning to Link, Delmar asked, "Surely you're not going along with this? You're the best First Mate I ever had. I know you don't believe these crazy fairy tales."

Link frowned, rubbing the mark on his hand. "I…I'm sorry, Captain Delmar. I have to see this through. It's as if my family's been living in exile for years and now I can finally be something other than a castoff wanderer. Don't ask me to try and explain it. Besides," he said with a sideways glance at Ganondorf, "I can't let my employer wander off by herself."

Delmar sighed so deeply both his head and shoulder drooped. "I suppose…there's nothing else to be done, then…"

"Go back to your city," Ganondorf ordered. "That is the best way to help your friends succeed…though I must admit that even if you do, you will likely never know."

"You…you mean…even if you get your crazy plan to work…"

Zelda smiled sadly. "The outside world must never know about Hyrule," she said. "When we were just looking for ruins, it was different…the country was already dead, nothing but bones remaining. Yet if there is a chance we can bring it back to life…"

Link extended his hand to the Captain. "Good-bye, Delmar. It's been a pleasure to sail with you."

At first, Delmar looked like he would refuse. Then he grasped Link's hand. "Good luck, kid. Good luck to all of you."

He took Zelda's hand as well, and even gave Ganondorf a small nod. Then he got back into his small boat and headed back to the _Scarlet Dragon_. He spoke not a word; he had never felt the need to try and speak with the dead.

--

"Well, shall we get going, or what?" Link asked as Delmar's boat reached the ship.

Ganondorf shook his head. "We should wait at least a day, maybe more. We can't risk drawing Daphnes' notice."

Link scowled. "Then what are we going to do, stand around and wait?"

A sly smile crept across Ganondorf's face. "We are about to venture into a world of magic and fairy tales, the likes of which you have never seen. Little remains of the original world, but there are still remnants here and there, and over the centuries they have probably twisted into fell and dangerous forms. It would be best if you practiced fighting in the same manner as your ancestor."

Link's smile mirrored Ganondorf's as he drew his sword. "If you'd like to try sparring, I'm more than willing."

The old man's eyes sparkled, yet his face showed a hint of contempt. "You're nowhere near the level of your ancestor, young one. Pay attention, and you might learn something before you injure yourself." He drew his double swords. "Ready?"

Link answered with a charge. Ganondorf deftly stepped to the side and rammed the butt of one hilt into Link's back, knocking him over. "Come! You're both older and taller than your ancestor when he faced me. You can do better than that!"

Getting to his feet, Link said, "Hey, how good can anyone be without a good master to train them? I'll give you the best of this modern world, and then some." He struck out and Ganondorf blocked his blade once, twice, three times. Then Link made a false swing and fell to the ground, kicking out with his legs toward Ganondorf's robes. Link struck something and the old man grunted, then knocked the offending boot away with the flat of his sword.

"That's a move I haven't seen before," Ganondorf admitted. "You'll need many more tricks like that if you want to survive in my world, though." With a whirling slash, he knocked Link's sword right out of his hands. He narrowed his eyes as Link quickly walked over, grumbling, to retrieve it. "But it is not all your fault. Your balance is off. Have you never fought with a shield?"

Link shook his head. "Fighting by sword is more of a hobby in the modern world than anything. You don't really expect anyone to injure you."

Ganondorf snorted, then concentrated, and produced a metal shield out of nowhere. "Here. It is the same type that your earliest ancestor used. Unlike the sword, it has no magic properties, and in fact it was used by the knights of the old country. But it will give protection and serve as a counterweight."

Link examined it. The top bore the sign of the Triforce, and the bottom had a crimson spread-eagle. He fit his arm through the handles and found that it fit quite well.

"You should be able to add some power to your strikes now," Ganondorf told him. "You've been moving the correct way, but the motions mean nothing without the power behind them. Now you can use this extra weight like a pendulum."

Link made a slow swing, testing the weight of the shield in the other hand. "It does feel…more complete this way," he said. "It'll take some getting used to, though."

Ganondorf smiled his sly smile. "That's what practice is for, isn't it?"

--

"So, back up a moment," Zelda said, as all three of them stared into the fire and chewed the bones of the chicken-like creature Ganondorf had produced. Cucco, he called it. "Why was it called the Ocarina of Time, if it was the Master Sword that allowed the First Hero to travel through time?"

"The Ocarina opened the Doors of Time to the Sacred Realm," Ganondorf explained. "It could also alter the sunrise and sunset, among many other things. It was a very powerful artifact, but one needed to know the proper tunes to play, as well. The instrument, and the tunes that went with it, have long since disappeared. Well, I remember two, but…"

"Please, share them with us," Zelda begged. Link rolled his eyes, rubbing the bruises he had acquired in his training.

"I'm no minstrel," Ganondorf snarled.

"Please."

He sighed and closed his eyes, then hummed a short, comforting tune. "That was the one that opened the Doors of Time. I heard it when the First Hero unlocked them, waiting for him to let me into the Sacred Realm. They called it Zelda's Lullaby, but I'm sure it was much, much older than even her bloodline."

He hummed a few more bars, this one a set of mournful, lingering notes. "That was the Requiem of Spirit," he said. "It was actually tied to the Spirit Temple, the one my people maintained." He stared into the fire, the flames in his eyes competing with those he had conjured over the stones. "It, and I, are all that remain of my people."

Link and Zelda sat in the long, uncomfortable silence. The air seemed filled with ghosts, mournful spirits of forgotten tribes that had been erased from existence, by both malice and the simple passing of time.

"We should sleep," Ganondorf said at last. "There will be much to be done tomorrow."

--

Link and Zelda stared in wonder at the sailboat that had appeared sometime during the night, brightly colored and carved with odd scrolls and images they had never seen before. It was about the size of a small yacht, and Link could tell that it had been built with speed and maneuverability in mind.

"It's beautiful," Zelda breathed.

"I thought you hated the water," Link said to Ganondorf. "Yet you know how to sail?"

"It was a necessity." Ganondorf frowned at the ocean. "Sometimes I had to move about the islands without drawing attention to my presence, for instance if I wanted to gather information about potential enemies." He gestured toward the carvings. "I decorated it in the fashion of the time, after the First Flood, so that it would not stand out. Even fewer relics of that time remain. They built their structures out of wood and other perishable materials, as if they believed there was no use in looking too far ahead, no point in investing in an uncertain future."

"Well, no point in wasting time," Link said. "Let's go."

Ganondorf paused. "There is one more thing you need to know. You are stepping into a war between two who are not gods, but who wield their powers. If you stand beside one, you are wholeheartedly against the other. There is no middle ground. If you attempt to stand between us, we will destroy you and each other."

Zelda nodded silently, but Link frowned. "Then there's a question I need to ask you," he said. "If we do manage to resurrect Hyrule…what do you intend to do with it?"

Ganondorf gave him an odd look. "A foolish question," he said. "I intend to rule it."

"But it belongs to my family," Zelda countered.

Ganondorf's eyes flashed. "Yes, and your family destroyed it. I broke it, but it was fixed. I could never go so far as Daphnes did." He stared down at Zelda. "You do not know your own country. How can you rule it? That was the mistake I made the first time." He looked away, out over the sea. "The Zora rebelled, so I froze them into their home…and so the lowland crops withered away, with no water to drink, and plunged the green land into famine." He turned back to her. "Do you wish to repeat my mistakes?"

"No, but…"

"After I bring my people back…after I bring them all back…perhaps then I will hand it over to someone I trust." He nodded to Zelda. "You have never known this land, you must get acquainted with it first if you wish to rule it. Do you understand?"

Zelda nodded silently.

"Then that is all that needs to be said. Now…let's begin our journey."


	15. Trials of the Bearers

Ganondorf held out his hand. "Link, give to me the pearl fragments you have."

Link handed it over as he hauled up the sail. "Okay, but I thought we were going to use our Triforce pieces to look for the rest."

Holding up the little bottle, Ganondorf said, "These things often migrate to holy places. There are three places in particular, in this area, that may have a concentration of Triforce shards around them. I cannot find the islands without some kind of map, and in any case I would not be able to recognize them…I'm sure even the most sturdy of landmarks have changed over so much time."

The mark on his hand glowed, and the shards lit up as if in answer. A bright ray of pure green light shot out from the bottle, pointing off to the east. "Do you see it? Set our course in that direction," Ganondorf ordered.

"Hey! I think a 'please' at least is in order. I'm not your servant!" Link snapped.

The old man looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "It is because you are a more capable seaman than I that I am trusting you with steering this ship. Make of that what you will."

Link grumbled a little, but set their course. Zelda looked out over the glassy water. "You know, I never noticed before, because you can't feel the waves on a large ship. But even in this small boat…the water is so calm."

"That is likely because the Great Dead Sea is just that," Ganondorf said. "It is not a real ocean at all. But if Daphnes finds us…" he trailed off.

Zelda sat down on one of the small benches carved into the side, just behind Link as he stood at the tiller. She watched the water speed by, wondering at the emptiness of it. She had not noticed before, as she had been concentrating on finding ruins, and knew where to find them. But the Great Dead Sea was so different from the ocean. There were no dolphins swimming alongside the boat, no schools of tiny fish, no errant seaweed bobbing along the surface. She wondered if the water was even devoid of diatoms, those microscopic creatures that thrived even in the most open ocean. Even volcanic islands eventually became covered with life, seeds and creatures that blew or floated in from elsewhere. There must be some terrible curse over this land that kept it barren for so long.

"There!" Ganondorf pointed out toward a spire of land, looking like an abandoned tor in the middle of a fen. As they came closer, the image didn't change much. It was not until they nudged the boat to the side of a small grassy shore that they noticed slabs of rock leading upward.

Zelda examined the stones closely once out of the boat. "They're so smooth, it seems like there was once water flowing here," she said.

Ganondorf frowned. "There was. The fact that it is no longer here is a bad sign. Come, let us see what we will see."

They followed the rocky path upward and entered into what appeared to be a small cave, except it was completely open above them. "It looks like a caldera," Link said, referring to a sunken volcano.

Ganondorf walked quickly ahead of them, clearly searching for something, pausing only to jerk his robes out of the brambles that shared the ground along with sickly crabgrass. Suddenly he stopped, and bowed his head. "It is worse than I feared. The Great Deku Tree is dead."

Link came up behind him and stared. "Dead" was an understatement. They stood before a lump of petrified wood, the front of which had hardened into a shape that resembled a face. It looked no more alive than a snow-covered marble statue.

"I'm sorry," said Zelda. "Was he your friend?"

Ganondorf shook his head. "No, my enemy. In two lifetimes, no less. I killed him once…but he grew back, as trees do." His face hardened. "It is truly a measure of fell power that _he_ could be killed."

Link turned his attention to his marked hand, which throbbed with pain. Rubbing it, he said more to himself than anyone else, "Is there…anything here? It feels like…" On a sudden impulse, he climbed the stony trunk up about fifteen feet, where the top of the tree had broken off a long time ago. "It's hollow," he reported, "and…there's something inside!"

With some scuffling and cursing, he managed to get to the bottom of the tree. To his astonishment, he found no less than the rest of his Triforce piece nestled between the roots. As he picked it up, he felt it melt into his hand, and the mark shone so bright that he nearly yelped in surprise. He felt the mark burn his hand - a good burning, like the hot sun after a cold winter - and saw that the mark had dulled again, but with one corner slightly brighter than the other two.

"I got it!" he shouted excitedly. "I got the rest of the Triforce of Courage!"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when he heard startled cries from outside the tree. He scrambled back up the trunk.

Outside, he saw hideous shadows advancing upon Ganondorf and Zelda. They looked like marionettes of story-book villains, all angular lines and knobbly knees, which had been eaten by termites and worms. Ganondorf hit one with his sword, but only succeeded in knocking it further away.

_Intruders_, the withered wood-creatures breathed in voices like creaking branches. _You have come to steal the treasure we guard. You will not leave this place alive_.

"What are they?!" Zelda demanded.

"They're Kokiri…or Koroks…or what's left of them," Ganondorf shouted back, his eyes equally wide. "By the Gods…they're completely twisted…"

Link drew his sword. "Get away from them!" He swung at the creatures, and the sword sliced through them easily. But there were dozens of them, hundreds even. They reached out for their pray with needle-sharp fingers, uttering haunting cries.

Suddenly they turned from the other two and jumped upon him, digging into his skin, his hair, searching for his eyes. "Get off!" He yelled, flailing. He felt claws rake his skin, hot blood seeping to the surface.

Suddenly he felt something release inside him. He gripped his sword tightly with his marked hand, and spun in a tight circle. "HIYYYAAAA!" The creatures flew off him and he plowed into them, slicing them with his sword and knocking them aside with his shield.

Finally, all the creatures lay broken at his feet, never to rise again. He looked up, out of breath, to see an amused expression on Ganondorf's face and Zelda staring at him with wide eyes. "What?"

"Link, look at yourself!" Zelda exclaimed.

He glanced down, expecting to see a gash in his side where the creatures had injured him. Not only was there no blood, but he was wearing a bizarre outfit, a belted forest-green shirt and sturdy boots, along with a series of belts and small carrying packs. "What the heck? I look like Robin Hood."

Ganondorf laughed, and the sound echoed throughout the caldera. "I forgot to mention…there's a certain dress code that goes along with being the Hero of Hyrule. What you see is the exact same thing your ancestor wore…both of them."

Link stared at himself in a pool of still, grimy water. "Can I take the hat off at least?"

"You…look quite good in it," Zelda said, and she meant it.

"I feel stupid."

"There is no point in arguing about fashion," Ganondorf said. "You are the Bearer of Courage, and there are certain responsibilities that go along with that role. Now…let's get going and see if we can find the rest of Zelda's piece."

--

"So this is where the second Hero grew up? Is that why it is a holy place?" Zelda asked as the pearl fragments, now glowing blue, led them to another island.

"No," Ganondorf replied. "A great water spirit lives here…or did at one point, anyway." The lines in his face deepened. "I don't have much hope after seeing what happened to the Deku Tree."

"Does this spirit have a name?" Link asked, pulling at the hose on his legs.

"It's Jabu-Jabu…not that his name will mean anything here." Ganondorf pointed to a large cavern on one side of the island. "There…that's where he lived."

They sailed carefully into the cavern. "What's this Jabu-Jabu look like?" Zelda asked, her eyes straining in the darkness."

"A great fish."

"Uh…hate to break it to you guys, but…" Link pointed to one side of the cavern. "Either a big whale beached himself here, or your Jabu-Jabu spirit is dead too."

Zelda turned to see Ganondorf's mouth curled in disgust, staring out toward enormous bleached bones lying half in and half out of the water. Her heart sank. "It looks like there really is no one left except Daphnes and Ganondorf." She rubbed her marked hand. "And yet…I have a feeling that there is a shard somewhere here, on this island."

Ganondorf turned to her. "You should act on that feeling, then. I'll anchor as close as I can and then we'll go ashore."

--

There did not appear to be any sign of human habitation at all. Link found it hard to believe that his ancestor had once lived here, part of a small village. The homes had been built entirely of wood, Ganondorf explained, so there would not be anything left. Zelda pushed through the prickly shrubs, holding out her hand like a divining rod.

They heard snorting in the bushes, and with a rattle and a snarl, a pair of wild boar rushed them. Ganondorf and Link easily dispatched both with their swords. "Descendants of the pigs that once lived here," Ganondorf said. "They're completely wild now."

Zelda pointed over the edge of a cliff. "It's there," she said with certainty. "But I've no idea how to get there."

She flinched slightly as Ganondorf laid a hand on her shoulder. "Stand still for a moment."

She blinked, and suddenly they were on the other side. Link stepped back and nearly fell off the cliff. Zelda shook slightly, and then felt no more unease, as if she had been introduced to something long forgotten. She beckoned the others forward as she followed the pull of the Triforce.

They roamed around for over an hour, turning in circles. Zelda insisted that she sensed the missing shard, but they could see no evidence of it. "Is there any possibility that the magic is…broken, or something?" Link asked.

Ganondorf shook his head. "It's here, just hidden. We need to figure out how to get to it."

Suddenly Zelda felt the ground give beneath her feet. Before she could utter a word, a great crack split beneath her and she fell down into darkness with a startled scream. She hit soft soil on the way down, and was relatively unhurt when she reached the bottom.

"Zelda! Are you all right?" Link called down to her.

"I…yes, I'm fine," she said, standing. "I just…need to figure out how to get back up. Wait, there's…there's something down here…"

She stepped forward carefully, toward a series of stones that looked like they had been built to hold a reflecting pool. Now all that remained was a scummy green liquid that smelled of decaying plants. She was about to turn away when she heard a voice speak.

"What are you doing here, my child?" Asked the voice. It had a beautiful quality to it, like clear spring water tricking over stone.

"I…I'm trying to find something," Zelda said slowly, not sure how much she should reveal.

"Zelda! What are you doing down there?" Link yelled from above.

"Then look into my pool, and you will find what you seek," said the voice, in dulcet, inviting tones.

"Oh…all right…" Zelda stepped forth cautiously. Suddenly the mark on her hand flared alight and she felt a strange piercing sensation. A warning.

"Who are you?" Zelda demanded, suddenly cautious.

"I am the Great Fairy who lives in this spring," said the beautiful voice. "Look inside my reflecting pool and you will find Wisdom."

Zelda stepped forward, and her mark flared again. "No," she said sternly. "I already have Wisdom. What are you hiding from me?"

Harsh laughter echoed throughout the cave. "Are you sure you want to know?" the voice demanded, now harsh and grating. "Sometimes Ignorance serves one better than Wisdom."

A pale blue light filled the darkness, and in one corner a huge creature spread its great feathery wings. Zelda gasped in horror upon seeing the hideous, gap-toothed hag's face of a harpy, sitting upon the inky black feathers of a vulture's body. "So, girl, is this what you wanted to see?" it asked with cackling laughter.

"Zelda! We're coming down!" Link yelled from above. The harpy made a shrieking cry, and the tunnel behind her caved in. Zelda could faintly hear cursing and the sound of boulders being pushed aside.

The harpy flew into the air. "I know what you seek," it said. "It is here, but you must find it on your own." Grasping something in its claws, it dropped the item into Zelda's hands. She looked down to see an old wooden bow strung with frayed gut, and an arrow that looked as if it had been carved by an old man with palsy, its fletching hardly in existence at all. "If your aim is true, you will find it."

Zelda stared up helplessly. "But I've never shot an arrow before."

"No time like the present to learn, my dear. Especially when your life depends on it."

"What?!"

With a screech that echoed throughout the chamber, the harpy dived for Zelda's face. She dodged just in time and felt the creature yank out a clump of hair. Shrieking, the harpy wheeled round and dived again, this time sinking its teeth into Zelda's shoulder. Her blood froze as she felt the icy twinge of poison moving through her skin.

Suddenly the mark on her hand burst into life, lighting the chamber nearly by itself. Zelda nocked the arrow to the bow and aimed it toward the harpy's heart. The creature swung down again, but reeled off to the side at the last minute. Zelda noticed that the mark on her hand brightened and dimmed depending on where she aimed her arrow. The moment the mark shone bright, she loosed her arrow.

The harpy cried out in agony as the arrow pierced its heart. It fell to the ground in a whirl of wings, then disappeared. In its place stood a fragment of shining gold.

Eagerly Zelda bent down to pick it up. The gold fragment melted into her hand, and the mark glowed bright, then dimmed except for one triangle in the other corner. To her surprise, she found that the bow in her hand had transformed into gold, along with the arrow on the ground.

"Zelda, are you all right?" She heard Link call as Ganondorf moved the last boulder to the side, letting in the daylight.

"Yes, I'm fine," she said, running toward them. "I got the rest of my piece as well!" She stopped short when she saw the look on Link's face. "What? What is it?"

Ganondorf threw his head back and laughed. "Take a look at yourself, Princess."

"Prin-" Zelda's voice cut off as she got a good look at the enormous gown she had somehow gained without noticing, the gold jewelry she wore, the embroidered gloves. "Where did all this come from? It's not going to be easy sailing in this."

"I can change it if you like." To Link and Zelda's surprise, her clothing suddenly changed after Ganondorf spoke, and she now wore simple pants and a sleeveless shirt, with a red neckerchief.

Link's eyes bulged. "You look like Tetra!"

"Of course she does," Ganondorf said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well," Zelda said with uncertainty, "it's easier to move around in…"

"Looks better than what I got stuck with," Link grumbled.

"I still looks silly. My hair is all funny."

"Looks don't matter," Ganondorf grunted. "Come. We have nearly finished our goal."

They made their way back down to the boat, but just after they had all climbed aboard, something huge and knobby rose out of the water. It looked like a loose barnacle, in the shape of a fish and as large as a horse. "O Dark King," it said in a voice that tasted of ash and rotten weeds. "So you return, to fail as you did hundreds of years ago?"

Ganondorf's eyes widened in horror and disgust. "So you still live, servant of Daphnes?"

The ancient fish-fossil laughed bitterly. "He knew you would return, and so withdrew from me the gift of death. But it will soon be over, O Dark King." It disappeared beneath the water.

"Quickly!" Ganondorf ordered. "We must find the final shards! Daphnes will soon be upon us!"


	16. Cataclysm

They scrambled into the boat, Link raised the sail, and Ganondorf used a blast of magic to make the wind fill the sail near to bursting. "If you can control the wind, too, why can't you fight Daphnes?" Link shouted over the splashes of water hitting the sides of the boat. He felt as if he were in a speedboat with no engine.

"This is just more parlor tricks compared to the power of the Wind Waker," Ganondorf said grimly as he kept his hand up toward the sail and watched the island shrink quickly behind them. "Fireworks compared to an erupting volcano. We need to get to the last piece as fast as we can. We have no chance at all without the power of the Triforce."

Zelda attempted to stay on her feet as the boat plowed through the water. But just as she started to get used to the speed they were traveling, she felt a sharp bump and fell over. She stood again, and was knocked back a few moments later. Link put his hand out to steady her, his other hand on the tiller. His teeth rattled in his mouth as they hit another bump.

Waves, she realized. Waves in a sea of glass. She scanned the water. Where they raced now there were very few, the small, normal ones one would see in any other ocean near the shore. But they rolled toward them, little bumps all in a line, growing larger as she looked out over the ocean.

She could feel the ocean's anger, deep at its core. It washed over her even above the surface. The waves came behind, steadily growing larger, a ripple effect radiating out from something too enormous for her to comprehend

The small waves started overtaking them. It would only be a matter of time before a great tsunami swallowed them whole.

Just as it had thousands of years ago.

"There!" Ganondorf pointed to a spire of land before them. "Dragon Roost Island, the last holy place!"

Zelda held on to the side of the boat with one hand, Link with the other. The boat rose high and crashed down into the valleys of the waves, spraying them all with seawater and jarring the bones in her body.

"Ganondorf, the reef!" Link let go of her for a brief second to point out at the island's shore. A dead reef of pitted stone jutted up when the waves pulled away from the island, buried again when the peaks crashed against the shore. "We'll be smashed against it!" He shoved hard against the tiller. "We need to find a safer harbor!"

"No time!" Ganondorf grasped both of them by their collars and in an instant, they stood on the island's shore, barely on land as water up to their waists curled around them and pulled, softly but steadily, back to the water. Ganondorf didn't even pause, he raced as fast as he could through the hissing sand and up to a rocky overhang, bellowing for them to follow him with haste.

Link glanced over his shoulder at the ever-rising water and the remains of their overturned boat smashing into the rocky reef. As he and Zelda ran, another wave crashed against the shore, tickling their ankles as they heaved themselves up the stony outcropping, its level much higher than the shoreline had ever seen. It struck him how quiet everything was except for the water, like lightning out of a clear blue sky.

Ganondorf led them through stone corridors once hewn by (apparently) human hands, but too quickly for Zelda to examine the markings made upon the walls. A bone-dry spring, the remants of what looked like an altar, and some sea-rotted nests of birds flashed by her eyes. She did note a great deal of pumice and obsidian; volcanic rock.

On the other side of the island, the sea did not look so threatening. But Ganondorf did not slow down at all. They came up to an enormous stone door, its carvings long since smoothed away by wind and rain. He jammed his hands into the small crack between the door and the floor, the mark on his hand glowing. With a mighty heave he thrust it upward, and nodded toward the other two. They rushed inside, and he let the door slam behind them. In the pitch-black darkness, he lit a small flame in the palm of his hand, and paused to catch his breath.

"This will buy us a little time, a little protection," he said. "We are now inside the rocky walls of a volcano, probably extinct by this time." He held the flame high and peered into a chasm that yawned red-black to their side. "I see no signs of activity…so the guardian of this place is probably long dead too. But the thick stone that makes up the volcano's walls is as safe a fortress as anything against Daphnes. Still," and here he gave them a warning glare, "like any fortress, a flood from a leak outside can turn it into a death trap. Let's move forward."

Compared to the noise and rush outside, the dead volcano seemed completely insulated. Link remembered exploring caves in his childhood, the feeling that the outside world beyond could be blown to pieces and he would never know. And yet, he did not feel entirely safe here.

If the sea was dead, the volcano felt as if it had never been alive. Link felt like he had stepped into a stone vault, a tomb. They heard no sound but the scrape of feet against stone, the swish of clothing, and quick, hurried breathing.

Down into the volcano's heart they traveled. Zelda felt as if she were walking into the heart of the world itself, like in an old story she had once read in school. Armed with only lamps, some scientific instruments, and food, the story's voyagers had attempted to reach the center of the earth and come back out again. The story climaxed with the travelers exiting a live volcano. Zelda wondered how her little group would find its way out again, if Daphnes blocked the way they came.

They reached a fork in the tunnel. Ganondorf held out his marked hand, following the path where the Triforce glowed brightest. High above them, low and soft but with a force that reverberated throughout the entire island, they felt rather than heard an enormous BOOM. Ganondorf glanced to the ceiling, then quickened his pace.

Finally, they reached a mammoth cathedral-like opening, so high that even Ganondorf's bright magic light could not pierce the edges of the darkness. But there was no need. Before them, encased in the rock, they saw giant fossilized bones. A four-legged creature, with a long tail, short front legs, and long back legs. Its skull held long teeth, and some sort of bone structure jutted from its shoulders.

"It looks like a dinosaur," Link said.

"Yes, or…a dragon?" Zelda peered at the shoulder bones. They looked like they could have been wings, if they were bigger.

Ganondorf nodded gravely. "You see before you the last of the holy guardians, Valoo the dragon. Now he is gone too, but…" He peered at the dragon's eye. "…but hope for us may exist still."

With great difficulty, Ganondorf climbed the rocky wall where the giant dragon's head rested. Within the eye something golden sparkled and shone in the magic light. Link kept his sword drawn and Zelda held her bow at the ready, waiting for some dark creature to appear once the last piece was claimed.

"It's here! All of it!" With his back turned to them, they could not see the strange gleam in his eye as he reached out and grasped the golden shards. As they melted into his hand, his body began to tremble. "Now we will…now we…"

Suddenly he went rigid. "Is something wrong?" Zelda called up to him. Link gripped his sword harder.

"Nothing's wrong," he said in an abnormally calm voice. Immediately afterward the cavern echoed with insane laughter. "Nothing at all. Nothing at all!"

Link's eyes flicked toward Zelda. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, he…"

"No, stop!" Ganondorf cried out, as if in pain. He lost his grip and tumbled down the wall, the little flame bouncing on the floor and dimming to an ember. The other two ran to help him, but he held up his unmarked hand. "No! Not any closer…not until I…"

His eyes rolled; his hand clutched at his throat. "I am the master here!" he shouted angrily, to whom they did not know. "I control you…I won't let it happen…" He snarled like an animal, his temple bleeding from a scrape on his fall from the rock.

Link stretched out his hand, wondering if the old man were having a seizure. "Look, just take it easy. We'll help you. Zelda, help him lie down…"

"Stay back!" Ganondorf shouted fiercely. Link instinctively raised his sword and the flash of steel glinted in the dying light. The old man's eyes widened, and suddenly he pulled his own swords from his sleeves, leaping across the cavern floor to Link.

"Not this time, Hero!" he snarled, sweeping his hand in an arc and nearly taking off Link's head. "I won't let you take what's mine!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Link demanded, nearly tumbling over backward and raising his own sword just in time to block a killing blow. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"It's mine, you hear me? MINE!" Ganondorf dropped one of his swords, grabbed Link's marked hand, and raised his other sword to chop the hand off. Suddenly he shrieked and arched his back in pain, releasing Link. Behind him stood Zelda with her bow held ready, and an arrow of light shone from the old man's back.

Link ran to Zelda's side, sword raised. But Ganondorf did not pursue them. He writhed in agony, then suddenly grabbed the shaft of the arrow in his back. He held onto it, gritting his teeth, as if the pain grounded him, bringing him back to earth. Then, slowly, he twisted the shaft and pulled the arrow out.

He stood for a few moments, gasping, the hand holding the arrow shaking. Then, as he slowly began to calm down, he placed the arrow on the floor. "I'm all right now," he said to them, speaking normally. "I…the temptation was nearly too great. I can't…I can't do this correctly if the darkness is in control. The Triforce will just break apart again. I need to think…" He sat down on a large stone.

Link and Zelda cautiously approached him, Zelda picking up her arrow from the floor. Ganondorf looked at her out of the sides of his eyes. "Don't be afraid to do that again," he said.

"What happened?" Link demanded.

Ganondorf sighed. "This…all this started when I tried to take the Triforce, the first time. Long before even the flood. It wouldn't obey my corrupted soul, so it split apart…" His brow furrowed "I'm not sure what to do now."

A long silence followed. Finally Zelda asked hesitantly, "You want to wish for Hyrule to return, don't you? Then why not have one of us do it?"

He looked at her, the possibilities running through his head. "That…that could work…the spell needed to reunite the pieces would take longer, though. I think…"

An earth-shattering BOOM shook the cavern, knocking both Link and Zelda to the ground. They stained their eyes and ears for any sign of movement, any new foe to present itself. After several seconds ticked by, Link asked, "Do you hear…that hissing sound?"

Zelda's ears pricked up; she could hear it too. The ground shook ever so slightly, but it was not the ground making that noise. "It…it sounds like…"

Suddenly Ganondorf leaped to his feet. "It's water! Daphnes has breached the volcano! Hurry, to higher ground!"

"What about the spell?" Zelda demanded as they took off running, back up the way they came."

"I'll take care of that. When you see the ancient seal appear, you must touch it first!" Ganondorf instructed. "Not me, and definitely not Daphnes. Either you or Link. Let nothing stand in your way! If you must kill me, do it! Everything depends on this, do you understand?"

They both nodded. Ganondorf began chanting some old spell, in a language as dead as the volcano. The sound of it sent chills up Zelda's spine. The marks on their hands glowed, lighting the way in the darkness.

As they ran, they passed thin waterfalls, curtains of seawater that fell from some breach far above. The further they ran, the more they saw, some of them spilling directly into their path. Below them they could see the chasm filling up, rising higher than they thought possible.

Then, all at once, the entire world exploded.

Link found himself struggling to breathe, wrapped in water, wind, and noise. He felt a hand grasp his shoulder and suddenly Ganondorf was there, holding Zelda's arm in his other hand. He did not stop chanting his spell, even as a cataclysm that had shattered the mountain raged around them.

They were on the surface of a writhing black sea, a giant whirlwind hanging in the sky above them. And in that whirlwind floated a familiar figure.

"Traitors!" It shrieked in a voice that sounded more like the wind than a human being. "Traitors to the seed! Traitors to the bloodline of the Royal Family! Behold, for this is the End of All Things!"

The whirlwind dove into the sea, a waterspout moving the wrong way. Then the sea itself began to follow the whirlwind's path. The eye opened up, dark and deep, and the entire world began to spin around it. As if by instinct, Zelda reached out with her power and enclosed them all in an electric-blue barrier, protecting them from the flotsam and jetsam that jostled against them as they all spun toward the center.

The maelstrom yawned wider and wider. Link felt as if he were flying into the eye of a hurricane. Even as they approached the edge and were swept into the enormous black hole, Ganondorf kept chanting. Both of the other two could feel a rising energy around them, the marks on their hands brightening, as if the sacred relic knew its time was about to come.

And then, in all the noise and force and wind, an almost comical figure popped up in the vacuum that made up the maelstrom's eye. "No, no no!" Daphnes shrieked. It's not possible! It can't be done! I…"

Suddenly his entire body stiffened with a jerk, and his eyes rolled back in his head. "Little puppet, I have only one last use for you." The voice that spoke was not Daphnes. It did not belong to any human being that had ever lived, to no mortal at all. Ganondorf stopped his chanting to draw in his breath.

With a shriek, Daphnes flew toward them. Ganondorf grasped Zelda tightly, anticipating the creature to strike the last pillar of Hyrule

But it didn't take Zelda. It took Link.

It crashed into them, so hard that it tore Link out of the blue barrier, sending Ganondorf and Zelda tumbling through the sides of the maelstrom like a stone skipping over the surface of the water. She could barely hear her own screams of fear, drowned in the old man's chest as he held her tightly with the barrier surrounding both of them.

And then, suddenly, everything stopped.

She opened one eye, then the other. She became conscious of the fact that she could breathe, with no trouble from the water. She wasn't in the water. Or was she?

She stood at the bottom of the ocean, a great bubble over her head, separating her from the navy-black water above. The silt she stood on was dry as a bone, and as desolate as the moon. Ganondorf stood before her, grim yet not without hope. "Are you all right?"

He nodded.

"Where is Link?"

Frowning, he said, "That…thing has him."

"What now?"

In answer, Ganondorf nodded toward three people that stood silently in front of them.

Three old women, ancient beyond comprehension. Dirty white hair fell from their shoulders in stringy knots, bits of dirt and the bones of fish tangled near the bottom. Their skin was gray, their clothing tattered rags. One woman stared from sightless eyes; another from one eye; another from eyes turned red from disease.

And yet, all three leaned upon beautifully carved staffs of wood, each with a jewel set in the very top. Sapphire, emerald, and ruby. As fragile as they looked, as if their very bones could turn to dust, the staffs held them up like pillars of stone.

"Who are you?" Zelda asked.

The blind woman chuckled, her voice frightening but devoid of malice. "What's the matter, child, do you not recognize Wisdom when you see it?"


	17. Children of Creation

Link was drowning.

He felt his body sink toward the bottom of the ocean, so far down that no light penetrated. Had he known which way was up, had his limbs not felt like lead, he might have tried to struggle to the surface. But here, on the edge of death, he could not move at all. He could faintly feel the current of the water flow against his face, small bubbles from below lightly striking his body. It was soft. It was not cold. He would lie here for eternity, cradled in the ocean's dark embrace.

_Link._

Someone was calling him. Not someone he knew. Yet somehow familiar. Like his own voice played back on a recording machine, intimate yet totally alien.

_Link. Awaken, Hero of Courage. Do you still not hear me?_

His eyes opened. Before him, a human figure stood or floated - it was hard to tell in the black nothing where he himself hung. The figure shone bright with its own light.

_Why have you not yet called me to you?_

Link forced his eyes to focus. It was like looking in a mirror. The same face, the same clothes…probably even the same puzzled, frustrated expression.

_Link. Even now you resist your destiny._

"Who are you?" Link demanded. He could speak. So perhaps he was not under water after all.

_I am you. The immortal Hero, the spirit of Courage. Why do you not accept me?_

Despite the circumstances, Link scowled and said, "What do you mean? Following a crazy old man and changing my clothes isn't enough?"

_You know me, Link_, the voice admonished him, with a hint of sadness. _It has been so long, you do not remember. You fear you will lose your unique identity. But every Hero is different."_

"Look, I don't know how you got here, but…"

_Fairy boy, farmer, fisherman, watcher of the winds…you are an avatar, Link. A vessel of the Gods. And yet someone different every time. Do you understand?_

"I suppose…but it all seems…so distant…" He struggled to verbalize thought in his already dreamlike state. "That's not who I am anymore. That was centuries ago. I don't have any connection to this land. I'm a fisherman in a modern world. I don't belong in Hyrule, restored or destroyed."

_You do not remember. That is because I have been bound here, since your ancestor left. Wisdom stays within the Royal Family, and those who oppose it always grasp Power…but you are different every time. Your soul is split between the Hero and Link, the mortal._

"Well then, now what?" Still not entirely there, Link nonetheless had had enough of hanging in space.

_Do you wish to remember?_

It was a loaded question. Loaded down with centuries of memories, ancient lore, and several lifetimes' worth of pain. But also triumph, and joy, and a sense of belonging that Link had never had.

There was no going back. And, he figured, it had to be better than drowning in an empty sea. "I do."

The apparition held out its hand. Link accepted it. And then, suddenly, in the space of a few white-hot seconds, Link _remembered_.

The open sky and the wind in his hair as he rode over the fields. The filthy walls and the smell of death in the labyrinths. Love, and longing, her golden hair spilling around him. Bloody wounds and a dark man with a dark past.

Link found himself gasping for air on a cold stone floor, as one who has been dragged up from deep water. But he was dry. There was light in the place where he lay, not fire or sun or any kind of natural light.

His mind shifted, so he could think again. The old Link moved to the back of his mind, so that the flesh-and-blood Link still remembered but also knew himself. Slowly, he raised himself up on one knee and took a pained look around him.

He knew this place. It should have been destroyed. That was the first thing that crossed his mind. Had he passed through both space and time? And for what purpose?

--

"Wisdom?" Zelda spoke in barely a whisper. "Then you are…"

"Great Goddesses." Ganondorf kneeled before them, probably the only beings that would see him willingly do so. Zelda followed suit. "Did Daphnes do this?"

Nayru shook her head. "What you face is not Daphnes. It used him, yes, just as it used you all those years ago."

The two part-mortals stood. "What do you mean?" Ganondorf asked.

Nayru turned to Zelda. "You know the origin story of Hyrule, do you not?"

Din stepped forward, clutching her ruby-tipped cane. "In the beginning, all was Chaos. From it, I shaped the earth. Farore created those who walked upon it, and Nayru created the laws that those creatures would follow. What you did not know is that Chaos, like us, is also a god."

"We fought him, in the beginning," Farore explained. "He attacked us, in the Sacred Realm where we slept. We could not destroy him, so we bent him to our own purposes. We took his wrath and tamed it, shaping the errant nothing into the creation we called Hyrule."

"Then we left the Triforce upon the land at the end," said Nayru. "The final lock to the chains that bound him, the sword through the heart. As long as it existed, Hyrule would exist."

"The Triforce taps the immense Power that is Chaos," Din said. "It channels Chaos into productive forms. The life force of all living things, the wind, fire, magic…it is all Chaos shaped by Power, Wisdom, and Courage into physical things."

"You said that I at one point was being controlled by Chaos," Ganondorf interrupted. Zelda watched him nervously, wondering if it was a good idea to speak over the gods.

Din nodded. "All those years ago, when you attempted to take the Triforce for yourself. It is not meant for mortals to use. Its myth had even then trickled down and been remade several times. One pure of heart could usher in a new era of peace, whereas a wicked heart would plunge the country into an age of darkness. It sounds like a fifty-fifty chance…yet the number of mortals with pure hearts is infinitely small."

Nayru raised a crooked finger. "Yet this was not Hyrule's undoing. We knew our children would be drawn to it, like moths to a flame. So we planned for it. The Triforce would split into its three elements, and Courage and Wisdom would balance out Power."

"So…where does Daphnes come in?" Zelda asked.

Nayru sighed. "It is a sad story. You see, even though Ganondorf wished to take Hyrule for his own, he never attempted to step outside the boundaries we created for it. Daphnes, on the other hand…"

--

The basement of Hyrule Castle looked exactly as Link remembered it. The same stained-glass windows. The same plinth that held the Master Sword, empty now for he had the weapon on his back.

And yet it had been washed away eons ago. How could it return?

"I see you recognize this place. The Hero finally regained his memory, eh?"

Link whirled round to see Daphnes, tattered and torn, limping toward him. Link gripped the hilt of his sword. "What's going on, old man?"

Daphnes laughed. "Old man, eh? Yes, I am old. Older than you, or anyone else. Older than the Goddesses, even."

Link took a step back. "What are you talking about?"

Daphnes spread his hands. "I only look like Daphnes Nohasen, once King of Hyrule. I need a physical form to exist in this world, you see. So he willingly surrendered his body in order to get his hands on power equal to that of the gods."

"Who are you?"

"I am known by many names," said the creature who had taken Daphnes' body. "Disaster, Famine, War…but the one you know me best as is Chaos."

--

"The Wind Waker? Chaos created it?" Zelda demanded, eyes wide.

Nayru nodded. "The wars between the Three Bearers was too much for Daphnes. He could not tolerate the destruction of his kingdom under Ganondorf, and he felt he could not wait for the Hero to appear."

"Chaos, as well, had long since realized that he could no longer use Ganondorf as his vessel in the mortal realm," Din said. She gave him a toothless grin. "Those periods of madness, that stand out in your memory as great black stains…that was when he was in control."

Ganondorf scowled. "I don't remember making any pact with Chaos."

"Chaos never fully possessed you," Din explained. "He could follow in your wake, he could spur you on to further madness, but he never completely controlled you. Your heart was anchored securely in Hyrule, in the land you had once cherished…in the people you had once sworn to protect."

Zelda watched as Ganondorf's hands tightened until his nails bit into the flesh. "So it was Chaos that destroyed my people."

"Yes and no." Nayru stepped forward. "You are partly to blame, as is Daphnes. But the majority of the burden falls upon us. We had created this world. We were duty-bound to protect it."

"How did Daphnes get the Wind Waker?" Zelda asked.

"Daphnes made a pact with Chaos," Farore explained. "He figured that if Ganondorf held the power of the gods, then he, Daphnes, would have to get power from other sources…"

--

"He willingly sacrificed himself to me," the not-Daphnes said, grinning insanely. "In return for his body I gave him the Wind Waker, and he used it immediately to drown Ganon and all connected to him…the monsters, the Gerudo, everyone."

For the first time in his many lives, Link felt fear. True, sick fear, as he beheld something greater and more terrible than anything any mortal could comprehend. This thing had destroyed an entire world, and now stared hungrily at him as if he thought Link might be tasty to eat.

"But the Goddesses would have none of it," Chaos said with a snarl. "Some of their chains still bound me. I was able to cover Hyrule in water, but not all of it, and nothing beyond that. I consumed Daphnes' body and then his soul. I wandered the world for many years, looking for a way I could enter it again. Then, many years later, an opportunity finally came."

"As the King of Red Lions." Link spoke flatly, trying not to let his voice waver. "You led me to attack the Bearer of Power, to find the Bearer of Wisdom, to piece together the Triforce of Courage."

Chaos nodded. "When you place such volatile elements together, _beautiful_ things happen." He raised his arms in a gesture of awe. "I knew if I set Courage and Wisdom against Power again, I could break free!"

Link frowned, the hole in Chaos' logic becoming clear to him. "But what will you do now that Hyrule is destroyed? What could possibly be left for you?"

Chaos barked like a savage dog, and Link drew his sword. "Foolish boy! Haven't you been listening? The Goddesses tied me down with their damned Hyrule. Now that all is in ruin, it's just a matter of time before I am _free_, completely free once more!"

Eyes narrowed, Link demanded, "What about the rest of the world?"

Spreading his hands, Chaos answered, "I couldn't care less."

Link finally drew his sword, advancing slowly. "Sorry, not-Daphnes, but I can't let you do that."

"Hah!" Chaos leered at Link's marked hand. "You carry within you my own power, which the Goddesses twisted and remade so that I would be pinned down by my own essence." He licked his lips. "I'll take that back now."

--

"What can we do?" Zelda asked in a whisper.

Nayru pointed to her and Ganondorf's marked hands. "You possess the power of the Gods now, our chosen children."

"Well, then, what are your instructions?" Ganondorf demanded. "Whatever Power can do to restore Hyrule, I will do it!"

"Not so fast," Din admonished him. "The old ways will not work now, with the world the way it is."

"Well, what can?" Ganondorf shouted, forgetting to whom he spoke.

Farore watched him as she spoke. "The hand of Power has always taken, destroyed, defiled. Now it must return, build, and restore."

Ganondorf frowned. "Rebuild Hyrule? How?"

"You remember Hyrule, do you not?"

"As if I stood in its fields yesterday."

"You, and only you, remember the lands as they truly were," Din told him. "Princess Zelda never saw all of her kingdom, and the Hero never fully understood it. But there is a price you must pay for such high magic."

His eyes narrowed. "A price?"

Farore pointed to him. "You, who have always taken, must now give back. With your memories and your life force itself, you can pour Power back into this world. But then you must sacrifice your own life."

He stood and said nothing, clearly conflicted. "Please, isn't there another way?" Zelda asked.

Nayru shook her head. "What is left of our magic is contained in the three of you. You and Link will also have your own trials to face, but his is different. If he truly wishes to restore Hyrule, he must take of it from within himself."

"This is foolish," Ganondorf muttered. "How can I even know it will work, if I am not there to see it?"

"I will take back your soul," Din told him, "And you will be reborn again, with a clean slate…if Link and Zelda can hold up their end of the deal."

Ganondorf's eyes narrowed and Zelda's heart sank. She knew there would be no way that he would trust his two lifelong foes to such a task.

And yet…

"I trust the Hero to do his job," Ganondorf said with resignation. "I could never win in battle against him, and Daphnes could not destroy him either, even though he obliterated the rest of Hyrule."

Zelda stared at him, eyes wide. He returned her gaze with a level stare, amber eyes filled with an emotion she could not identify. "Little Princess," he said slowly. "Understand the gift I give to you. You must protect my people as well as your own."

Zelda felt her eyes sting. She had seen so much in so many lifetimes, and yet…she could not fully grasp what he was about to do. It didn't seem like him at all.

And yet it seemed like he existed to fulfill this one final task.

"I will." She touched his marked hand with hers. A small gesture, an enormous gesture. He nodded once, as if in affirmation of the pact they had just signed.

Ganondorf placed his hands together as if in prayer, or meditation, and closed his eyes. Zelda felt a strange sensation, a shadow forming behind her, of memories being pulled from the dark beyond, the scent of forgotten tomes and abandoned temples.

In that barren gray wasteland, a tiny sprout appeared, light green and thin as a blade of grass. Then another and another, reaching up through the ground, scattered all around their feet. The ground turned from stony to emerald, a soft carpet of plants beneath their feet, perhaps fifteen feet square.

Suddenly that green carpet expanded swiftly around them in a circle. As the grass spread, a tiny spot of light emerged above them, the water in between the two spreading outward to reveal the blue sky far, far above them. Zelda smiled involuntarily as both its light and warmth hit her face, and she as well as the Goddesses instinctively raised their heads.

At their feet, the green carpet spread further, sprouting flowers, bushes, and a few stones. Trees burst from the ground like flowers from a magician's wand. At the far ends of her vision, Zelda could see mountains rising slowly, reclaiming the heights from which the breaking waves had worn them down.

Then she felt the _wind_.

A breath of wind, a life-filled wind, that which the old man had spoken of with such longing many lifetimes ago. The sweet smell, the living touch! She had to suppress the urge to laugh with joy, like a man finally released from a cold, dark prison. The wind caressed her face, tugged playfully at her dress. It was alive. She was alive.

The wind roused Ganondorf from his meditation. He drew his swords, and moved with a strange grace, measured power in every step. An ancient dance. One lost to all time, except to the very last of a long-extinct people. Movements that held a prayer to the Three that stood before them, a play of praise that begged its benefactor for the necessities of life. Rain, water, food, fire.

Zelda heard the chirping of birds. A flock of small songbirds whipped past her head, singing to the skies. The hum of insects. The call of a stag. A rush of blue swept past them and the roaring river added to the cacophony. Sound filled the empty silence.

To her right, an enormous stone structure rose out of the ground. A magnificent castle, edging painted in gold, its colorful banners unfurled and bearing the mark the two both carried on their hands. A small town beside it, many houses of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Tended gardens. Shops overflowing with wealth.

And then, the _people_.

First, men and women that looked like her. Yet more delicate-boned, with distinctive pointed ears, all dressed in colorful garb no matter what the quality of the fabric. A select few had silver hair, crimson eyes that could see deeper than the others of their kind. Then more people rose out of the river, scaled like fish with thin membranes on their arms and legs. Still more people appeared, enormous rotund figures with stony skin, the ground rumbling beneath their feet as they walked. Small children with high, happy voices, small lights twinkling above their heads. One of the lights passed close to Zelda's face, a bright fairy with gossamer wings.

Then a procession astride horses. These people had sun-bronzed skin, hair as red as flame. They wore fine silk, brightly colored. Strangely enough, every one of them was female. They rode proudly in the saddle, clutching bows or glaives. They showed no hostility, and yet a readiness to fight if need be.

Zelda glanced over to the old man beside her with the same fire-red hair. His face was set in a stony expression of intense concentration. As his eyes lingered on the procession, a single tear fell.

She blinked quickly a few times, then realized her eyes had not deceived her; he was _fading_.

She looked to the Goddesses for an explanation. Din caught her expression and nodded. "He is feeding his own essence into this land. When he is finished, I will take what remains."

She turned to him. "The time is nigh, my child."

Ganondorf turned to face Zelda. Strangely, his double swords had not faded at all. He stepped toward her on footsteps that made no sound and offered the blades to her. "This, and the Master Sword, are the only physical things of that ancient age that still remain." His voice sounded muted, as if he spoke from far away. "They belonged to Nabooru, the Sage of the Spirit Temple; but for years they have been a part of me, and now I bequeath them to you. Use them well."

Zelda took them with reverence. "I will. I promise."

He gave them to her, then paused ever so briefly. With a phantom hand he lightly touched her face. "Had things been different…" his fading voice trailed off, and he turned to Din. "I am ready."

Din let go of her staff and spread her arms. It vanished, as did Ganondorf. Din's form glowed bright red, so bright that Zelda had to shield her eyes. When she opened them again, the Goddess' form had completely changed.

Between her two sisters stood a beautiful young woman, garbed in crimson with hair of fire. The enormous presence that had been Ganondorf now resided in this person, an entity that simply exuded power. She spoke in words that were neither quiet nor loud, yet they seemed to fill Zelda's entire consciousness.

**"The first piece has been returned. My child will wait until the other two are regained."**

Nayru nodded at Zelda. "Now it is your turn. This world will not stay in place if Chaos still exists."

"Even now, Chaos battles with the Bearer of Courage," said Farore. "You must aid him, for Courage cannot subdue him alone."

**"The Child of Power has given you a foundation to stand on,"** said Din. **"Without it, confronting Chaos would not be possible. You must find Chaos, and quickly, before this world begins to fade once more."**

--

Link's blade rang in his hands as he forced back the ball of pure energy that Chaos had thrown at him. Chaos dodged it easily, yet screamed in frustration. "Curse you! Curse all of you, Children of the damned Goddesses!"

Suddenly Link understood Chaos' seemingly overblown anger. They were not supposed to be in this place. It wasn't supposed to exist, but it did. Chaos had created a maelstrom of nothing, but now Link had solid ground beneath his feet. It strengthened him and weakened Chaos. But who had done it?

He could feel a familiar presence. Not completely welcomed, yet strong, powerful, everlasting. The mark on Link's hand burned. Suddenly it flared to life as rage tore through his soul, as he realized what had happened.

"You tried to destroy us all," said Link, the Ageless Hero now fully in control. "You could not do it. You never will."

He lunged forward.

--

Zelda strapped the twin swords to her back. She had traded her pirate's clothing for that of the silver-haired, crimson-eyed people. Even when they had disappeared, their ancient arts had lived on in one who had been forced to learn their ways. Now the ways of the shadow people would be brought back into the light.

The mark on her hand pointed her in the right direction. Zelda set off to find Link…and Chaos.


	18. Last Stand

Link ground his teeth in frustration. No matter how many times he hit Chaos, even though the creature made short cries of pain, it did not seem to have any lasting effect. Now Link circled it slowly as it stared at him in its not-Daphnes form, realizing that it wanted Link to keep attacking until he ran out of energy. A chill ran up Link's spine as he realized he was like an animal in a trap, uselessly straining against whatever bound him.

Chaos grinned wide, reading Link's expression. "You're wondering why you cannot strike me down with the Sword of Evil's Bane. It is quite simple. I am not evil."

Link rarely sneered, but this pronouncement warranted it. "And how, may I ask, are you not the most evil of all creation?"

"Simple. An earthquake is not evil. A famine is not evil. They are neither good nor bad; they merely Are. Evil exists only in the hearts of men…using disease, or war, against their fellows."

Link did not move from his fighting stance, though his limbs had already begun to ache. "You still have Daphnes' form. He drowned his own country, twice. Is that not evil?"

Chaos emitted a cry of frustration, clawing at its neck. "This is a mere costume, a shell I wear to protect myself from the Goddesses' bonds." It strained its neck and shoulders like a pinned dog, rolling its eyes. "We must go somewhere else…yes…"

It leaped at Link, who struck it with his sword and dodged out of the way. Sneaking to the side like a weasel, it jumped Link from the back and clung to him, wheezing, reminding Link all too clearly of ReDeads. Link threw him off, and Chaos struck its head against the wall of the castle basement, but it didn't even faze him. He leaped upon Link again, encircling him with his arms.

As quick as blinking, Link found himself in another familiar place; Ganon's Tower. He broke free of Chaos' grasp with a headbutt and whirled round to see Chaos grinning insanely at the ceiling. "Yes, yes, we remember…here, where Daphnes split the Triforce and entombed all beneath the waves. It is strong in the Bearer of Power's memory, even as he tries to form its physical existence…it gives me power…"

To Link's horror, Daphnes' form began to melt. The eyes rolled grotesquely back in his head, his bottom teeth elongated, and bristly hairs sprouted from his back. Link took several hurried steps back as he began to recognize the form the creature was taking. Booted feet turned to split hooves, hands grew claws, their palms clutching a pair of tridents. In moments the enormous man-boar form of Ganon stood before him, just as it had in the Hero's first encounter.

Chaos' laughter echoed strangely in the oddly shaped chamber. "Behold, Hero of Ages!" he cried. "I am the bane of your existence, the shadow that followed in the wake of Ganondorf and the force that drove Daphnes to madness. I will devour you, and that which you bear shall be mine once more!"

--

Zelda stopped suddenly as she ran down the stairs, nearly tripping and falling head over heels on the stairs leading to the castle basement. A strange feeling shot through her, not unpleasant but very unexpected. It was as if she had been descending into darkness, the vortex of a tornado, and the sun had suddenly split the clouds and bathed the world in light. The problem? The darkness was what she sought.

Chaos had moved, she realized. But how? And where? Was Link fighting it?

She ran down the rest of the stairs, afraid of what she might find. But when she finally reached the bottom, there was no one to be found. Just the stained-glass windows of the long-dead sages, and the plinth of the Master Sword. She ground her teeth, frustrated at being handed more puzzles in a mission already full of uncertainty.

Suddenly she felt a prickling in one hand, her marked hand. One Force was pushing her, the other pulling. One trying to guide her to the other, which called in hopes that she could hear. Zelda raised her hand, held it in the air and tried to pinpoint the source of the pull. She felt its energy, watched its glow. Somewhere outside, in front of her and a little to the right.

She flew back up the stairs and then out one of the castle's back doors. As she raised her hand again, it flared to life as she passed it over a path leading to the mountains.

Zelda knew that path all too well. She had ground her feet into it, kicking and struggling, before her captor had lost his patience and sent her to sleep for the rest of the way. She knew what that path held at its end, the destruction of an entire world.

She doubled her speed as she ran down the path, hoping against hope that she could stop it from happening again.

--

By this time Chaos had reciprocated Link's strikes with several deep gashes along the young man's side and arms, though none were serious enough to deter his fight. It took more than a few cuts for the Ageless Hero to even take notice of the blood flowing down his arms, mixing with the blue-black essence he had managed to lancet out of Chaos' thick hide.

Breathing hard, Link assumed a defensive stance as Chaos slowly circled him. The cavern in which they stood was too small for Link to run very far, but if he stayed close to the walls, that made it hard for the tall, bulky form of Chaos to attack him. Frantically he racked his brains for anything he could possibly do to Chaos that didn't involve the Master Sword. Of course, the sword hadn't fully defeated Ganon the first time. Link had needed Zelda and the Sages' help to seal him in the Sacred Realm.

Zelda! Link could feel her approaching. She must have figured out where they were. Link raised his sword again, new hope giving him renewed energy. He and Zelda had escaped Chaos the last time they were here. Surely they could do it again.

Chaos, too, raised its head and flicked its ears, sniffing the air with his pig's snout. "The other Bearer approaches," it said smoothly. "At last, I can regain my power once more…but not in this state. No, there is too much at risk…"

Chaos turned its head back toward Link, its face splitting into a porcine grin. "You two together are a force to be reckoned with," it said. "So it's best that we finish this now, before she has a chance to get here."

Link steeled himself for an attack, but Chaos did not move forward. Instead, its form began to blur and to melt. Link blinked quickly, thinking Chaos must have attempted a spell, but when he turned away he could see the walls of the chamber in perfect focus. Jerking his head back, he watched as Chaos' mutating form undulated like a snake shedding its skin.

The first thing that emerged from the blurry mass was a hand, or a claw, which reached out into the open air and then grasped the ground below it. The very skin of the creature wriggled and twisted like thousands of tiny worms, burrowing into the solid rock and eating it like tree roots. Stone turned to dust in seconds and a giant hole appeared. The creature deliberately lowered itself into the hole, as if it needed _more room_ to grow into something even bigger.

Another claw emerged, and it grasped the rock like ivy, filling in the cracks but leaving the stone intact. It pulled upward, ushering in whatever horror that had formed in the dark hole. Link felt the air move to accommodate an enormous presence, a sudden increase of mass that he could feel despite being many yards away. The fisherman Link suddenly had a vision of an unfortunate experience involving himself in a dinghy, a dark fog, and an immense ship bearing down on him from beyond the gray mass.

The creature's head emerged; a nightmare vision of monsters of the ocean deep, with long needle-like teeth, brownish-green scaly skin, and giant lamplike eyes that darted this way and that. A greenish smoke-like substance curled around the edges of its mouth. The head moved sinuously to the side by way of a long dragon's neck, and as both claws pulled the shoulders over the edge of the hole, great batlike wings spread over the yawning chasm.

With one last push, it hauled the rest of its body out of the hole; a great, slimy mass resembling a giant slug. With laughter that shook the stones and vibrated through Link's body, it said, "Now you see my true form! Hero of Ages, I am Chaos, the beginning and end of all things! My wings are the winds of ruin, my breath is disease and pestilence, my claws decay, and my voice the cries of war! Look upon me and despair!"

Link advanced slowly, holding his sword tight. Chaos laughed once more. "I would applaud your reckless courage, were it not in essence stolen from me. Your Goddesses think they can win by changing the story; they made the Destroyer the Renewer. Of course, that can only mean one thing as far as your role goes. And do you know what that is?"

Link knew but he didn't care. It was not the place of the Hero to contemplate his existence, even if all knew that he must die.

--

Zelda flew through the corridors of the Tower, now and then getting thrown against the walls by the tremendous earthquakes that came from the battle above her. She knew it must be a batttle; it could be nothing else. She tried to run faster, but she had already passed her physical limit a long time ago. She ran on what power Nayru could give her.

Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion burst out above her. She jerked her head up to see the ceiling buckling above her, and the blue shield she had used in the submersible appeared a split second before it crashed down upon her head. The rubble of the tower rolled and shoved and slammed her, but she was safe inside the shield.

Finally she came to a stop, and could see blue sky above her. The entire tower had collapsed, along with a good part of the mountainside. It looked as if a volcano had self-destructed, an impossibly huge mass of shattered rock broken by an impossibly huge force.

And, above all, she could see a strange _blackness_ begin to grow at the furthest point of the mountain, as if reality itself were coming apart at the seams, the fabric of space and time slowly unraveling as she watched.

A huge rock began to move, and Zelda suddenly realized it was not a rock but an enormous, grotesque creature, its head bent as if searching for something in the blasted stone. "Where is it?" it demanded in a grating voice that burned her ears. "Give it up! Give back that which is mine!"

Zelda stood upon a slab of stone and watched as the creature pried something out of the rubble with its claws. A bloody chunk of flesh with a stained scrap of forest-green cloth still clinging to it.

She fell hard to her knees, her hand over her mouth, choking. If Chaos had seen her, it would have been the end of everything, for she blocked out all else in order to push the horrific image out of her head.

But it was completely focused on what was left of the Ageless Hero. "Give me back my power!" Chaos barked. "You have no use for it now!"

Backing down behind the boulders, Zelda held her knees to her chest, trying to force her body to stop shaking. She started to retch again, and put her head between her knees. She concentrated on smoothing the ragged sounds of her breath, and slowly the panic died down to a dull roar.

Even though he was clearly dead, Link still somehow held on to the Triforce of Courage. Chaos did not have it. Just as she could feel Ganondorf's presence in the earth, something of Link hovered in the air around her.

There was something more. As Zelda inched forward, the glint of the sun on metal caught her eye and she found the Master Sword, wedged in between two enormous pieces of wall. Using the smallest scrap of magic, so that Chaos would not sense her presence, she slowly teased it out. The intense concentration and the presence of the enormous creature searching just off to one side tested her strength and sweat poured down her face, streaking the dust that the collapsed building had kicked up. Finally she grasped the hilt, still warm to the touch. She kneeled on the ground, hefting its weight and trying to figure out how in the name of the Goddesses she would be able to do what the Hero could not.

_Zelda._

She jerked up at the sound of her name, sensed not spoken. To her side stood a ghostly figure, a young man she had never seen before. He stood very tall, with short red hair, and flowing garments of a make she had only seen in her earliest lifetime. His form before he had been corrupted. "Ganondorf…? But…you and Din…"

_What you see is but a part of me_, said the specter. _I was sent by Din to aid you, as was Link._

"Link?" She turned to the other side and saw another ghost, dressed in the fisherman's clothes his most recent form had taken.

_You can't kill it with the Master Sword alone,_ Link told her. _But it still hurts it, because the sword is something of the Old World_.

_As are the blades on your back_, said Ganondorf._ Zelda, let us lend you our strength so you can chain Chaos to this earth once more_.

"How?" she demanded.

_Place one of the swords in the ground next to me_, Link instructed. _Farore and I will use our power to pin one of its hands to this spot_.

_You must take the other sword and run, run so that Chaos hits Link's sword, then plunge the second into the ground._, said Ganondorf_. Din and I will pin down its other hand. Then you must strike him through the skull with the Master Sword._

Zelda peered over the stones at the angry creature inching closer to her. "How fast can it run?" she asked.

_It's best if you don't think about that_, was Link's blunt reply.

Ganondorf grinned at her. _For all our sakes, Princess…make sure you don't die_. Then he became serious again. _We are here to help you, Zelda. Now, quickly, while you still have the upper hand!_

Zelda waited no longer, for fear she would lose her nerve. She plunged one of Nabooru's blades into the ground, between her and Chaos, and sprinted off in the opposite direction. She knew it would only give her a few precious seconds before it saw her and gave chase. Sure enough, she heard a triumphant bellow that threatened to melt her knees and she pushed on as fast as she could. She felt the great lumbering gait of the beast, the sound of its eager, labored breath, short barking cries like a dog upon a scent. She did not dare look back. It filled her ears, her skin, her mind…

And then suddenly gave a great shriek of rage, pulling upon one of its arms stuck to the ground. She kept running, as Chaos raised its other arm and brought it down hard. Just behind her, he struck, and she went flying. On the ground, she felt thousands of tiny wormlike tentacles crawling over her feet, her legs, her body, circling around her and squeezing hard. Before it could crush the life out of her she ripped the second sword from its holder on her back and thrust it into the undulating mass. With a bloodcurdling shriek it withdrew, blue-black essence bubbling from the blade.

Chaos tugged back and forth but could not move its body, pinned between the two swords in its hands. It raised its head high, as if to demonstrate the power of movement it still held over her. "You will not win, Princess of Ill Fate," it snarled. With the speed of a striking snake it snapped at her heels, then jerked back, waving its head from side to side like a cobra.

With some of the hardware removed from her body, Zelda could move around a little quicker, a little easier, but nowhere as fast as the creature. She'd had no time to find any of the exploding deku nuts used by the Shekiah. Instead, she took the golden bow and single Light Arrow from her back and aimed it at one of Chaos' eyes, keeping well back from his striking line.

It missed.

Chaos laughed as it bounced off his scaly skin, just to the right of one eye. "Foolish Child of the Goddesses. Even if you put out both eyes, I can still smell you, still sense your presence in the stolen power that you bear. Give it to me freely, and you will not suffer when you die."

Zelda's mind raced. She could not move forward, she could not move back. She was not quick enough to strike the creature without at least some harm to herself. And how could she guarantee that she could strike before it bit her in two?

Chaos moved its head to mirror every little movement she made, watching her with its grotesque bulging eyes. The moment she stepped closer it tensed for a strike, waiting for her to cross into its reach.

Finally, she made a decision.

She jumped forward, balling up her body as she did so with the point of the sword raised upward. It had her in its mouth before she could even touch the ground. And as it bit down, she hefted the sword upward with all her might.

Two anguished cries split the air, one from Chaos as the Master Sword stabbed through sinew and bone right through its brain. The other came from Zelda as long teeth pierced her arms, legs, and body.

For the first few moments, Zelda could not tell what was going on, only that for good or bad, her role was finished. As her eyesight faded, and her hand slipped from the sword hilt, she heard a voice filled with pride and triumph, and suddenly the stabbing pains disappeared. Nayru's voice echoed in her mind as the world fell into darkness. Not the emptiness of the fading world, but merely the dimming of lights at the end of a play.

_**Well done, my Child**_.


	19. Epilogue

Captain Delmar frowned over his map, searching for the island C-12, the island the old man had called Windfall. The last place where he had seen Miss Nohasen, his First Mate Link, and the old man who had started all this trouble.

_My eyes must be failing me_, he thought to himself. _Sure, it's small and obscure, but I can't find it on here._

He couldn't find it on the computerized maps, either. The cartographer at the Coast Guard office had no idea what he was talking about. Finally, Delmar decided to take matters into his own hands. Sure, the youngsters and their strange friend had been a handful, but he couldn't just leave them out there to pursue some insane quest.

He hadn't remembered much other than rocks and grass on that island. He hoped he wasn't too late.

"Captain, what are you doing?" an irritated voice asked. Delmar looked up and nearly fell out of his chair. "_Blacken?_"

First Mate Blacken stared at him. "Yes…? Are you feeling all right, Captain? We're nearly to Star Mountain. Are you going to turn, slow down, or just ram right into it?"

Delmar wasn't sure what question to ask first. "What?"

The First Mate rolled his eyes. "I told you not to drink that stuff Reddy brought on the ship. I know people drink liquor with worms at the bottom, but I really don't see how pickled mouse would add to the flavor."

"What?"

Blacken's eyes narrowed, and his usually annoyed manner edged over to be replaced by a slight bit of concern. "Seriously Captain, are you feeling all right? Maybe you should come out on deck and get some air."

"I will, thanks." Delmar stood, felling dizzy. Blacken was not supposed to be there, but for the life of him, Captain Delmar could not figure out why. He weaved back and forth as if he hadn't yet found his sea legs, Blacken wearing a detached expression and occasionally offering a hand to steady him.

As they stepped onto the deck, Delmar had to grab the door handle to steady himself. Just in front of them rose a gigantic land mass, stretching for miles on either side, and towering so high that he could not see the top, even though there were no clouds.

"What on earth is _that_?" Delmar demanded.

"Star Mountain," Blacken replied matter-of-factly. He quirked an eyebrow at the Captain. "For heaven's sake, _you_ haven't forgotten why you dragged us out here, have you? You've kept it a secret all this time." He smirked. "Looking for Shangri-La?"

"Shangri-La?"

"You said something about some friends of yours coming here. I figured they were looking for Shangri-La. That's really the only reason anybody comes way out here." Blacken craned his neck to stare up at the limitless mountain. "I've never cared much for silly legends. So many mountain climbers have died trying to reach the fantasy land some claim to have seen there…myself, I think it was the altitude sickness."

"Silly legends?" Delmar demanded. "What about the one with the cursed sword?"

Blacken turned to look at him. "What cursed sword?"

Delmar opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You know…you were always harping on about it. A cursed sword…at the bottom of the ocean…"

Blacken gave him a look of faint distaste. "I don't ever remember mentioning anything like that, Captain. You must be thinking of someone else."

Delmar scratched his head so long it began to hurt. "Well, Captain? Shall we turn around, or follow the mountain around its shores?"

"Er…I…turn around, Blacken. We'll turn around. I doubt there's anything here for us."

"Aye aye, Captain." Blacken turned and began barking orders at the crew.

As the _Scarlet Dragon_ slowly shifted to starboard, Blacken stayed along the railing and watched the mountain gradually disappear on the horizon. Somehow, the girl - whose name he couldn't remember - had found what she had been looking for. He could feel it. But for the life of him, he could not remember what it was.

Once it finally disappeared, he walked quickly back to the captain's deck. His part in this, whatever it was, was over.

The others' legends, however, were just beginning. Now and forever.

**THE END**


End file.
